# What's my next step?



## davis1862

I'm in the process of removing several layers of wallpaper from the walls in an upstairs bedroom of my home which I only recently bought. As you can see from the photos, there is a top layer of a fairly thick wall covering. It comes off pretty easily but leaves its backing in spots. Under that first layer is a second layer of light blue wall paper. 

It's a real chore to get down to the bare walls. The bare wall is brown...not what I expected. I was expecting a light gray sheet rock. Or white. It's actually more brown than it appears in the photos.

The brown, bare wall also appears like it might be porous.

My end goal is to remove all paper down to the bare wall and paint. How should I prep the bare wall before painting? Will I need a sealer? Should I do a skim coat?

Any and all advice will be appreciated!


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## nealtw

You will have some repairs to do and maybe you will want to skim it and you will want a primer before you paint.


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## mabloodhound

I would repair the bad spots, tape the joint & nails, then a skim coat. Yes, prime paint/seal before finish coat.


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## bud16415

Having been thru this exact same project more times than I want to think about, but mostly in my case it was over old hard plaster. Plaster takes getting wet better than drywall and hot water is what it really takes to get the old pasted papers off. Water has to be used carefully with drywall. I don&#8217;t know how old your home is but you might even have plaster behind the drywall, as it was common to put a thin layer of drywall on to start over. The drywall doesn&#8217;t look like it was taped or the nails mudded. So they went with paper right off. Having hung a lot of drywall and scraped a lot of paper I sometimes think it is easier to pull the old drywall down and put up new if you value your time at anything. If you need to do wiring or insulation it really is the time to rip it down. 

What I did in this house was scrape all the walls down and repair the plaster and paint on the walls but the ceilings I went over them with new half inch drywall and didn&#8217;t worry about the plaster or the paper that was up there. 

Every job is different and drywall is cheap.


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## beachguy005

The brown that you see is probably just a paper layer on the sheetrock.  If you peel away the top gray layer of paper there is another sub-layer that's brown.  I would get a bucket of joint compound and a very wide taping knife and after you're done removing all you can, thin out the compound a bit with some water and skim-coat the entire wall until it's smooth then prime and paint.


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## DFBonnett

Good advice ^. The brown is just under the sheetrock surface. Don't try to remove it. You'll just get down to the gypsum. Get off all the wallpaper you can without getting down to the brown. Allow to dry overnight, dry sand, apply two coats of a sealer, preferably Gardz. Home Depot and most paint stores carry it. Allow to dry, Sand again. Do not try to skim coat without using the sealer or you will just get the backing bubbling up. Retape as needed, skim coat until you are satisfied with the surface, then sand out, prime and paint. What you are encountering is the result of minimal or no prep prior to the installation of the wallcovering.


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## davis1862

Thanks for all the advice and feedback. I have a whole house like this to deal with!


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## nealtw

davis1862 said:


> Thanks for all the advice and feedback. I have a whole house like this to deal with!



I would try a sample of skimming over the old with out removing anything.
Just to see if it will work.


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## davis1862

Hey everyone...I *finally* finished up this bedroom and thought you might enjoy seeing how it ended up!


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## Chris

Looks great!


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## slownsteady

Lookin' good. I would like to hear some of the details on how you went about it.


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