Walls should be clean, dry and sound. You can paper directly over painted surfaces, as long as you have washed them thoroughly with sugar soap.
Remove peeling or damaged wallpaper
Stripping wallpaper is a messy job, so take up carpets or cover them with dust sheets. Take all the furniture out of the room or group it together in the middle of the floor and protect it with more dust sheets.
Use warm soapy water (or water with paper stripper) to soften old absorbent wallcoverings, then use a wide stripping knife to scrape the paper off the wall. A steam-generating wallpaper stripper makes the job even easier. When removing painted wallpapers or washable wallcoverings, scratch the surface with a wallpaper scorer to enable the moisture to penetrate.
You can peel vinyl wallcoverings off the wall, leaving the backing paper behind. If it is sound, just paper over the backing, or strip it like ordinary wallpaper.
Repair damaged plaster
Repair damaged plaster with a fine surface filler. Rake loose material from deep cracks and holes, then pack filler into all the crevices, using a flexible filler knife.
When the filler is dry, sand it smooth with medium-grade abrasive paper.
Size newly plastered walls with a 'proprietary size' or diluted wallpaper paste to make sure paper will adhere.
Previous
