Bringing the wall down to plaster, and then repainting onto the wall directly

[kenconut]

Hi all,

I'm an absolute novice at this and want to get all of the right information and equipment before committing to doing any work, in order to avoid any issues occurring.

Had a chat with the previous owner and apparently nothing of concern materials wise, plaster is mostly lime or gypsum in different spots. A lot is wallpapered over or lining paper + paint.

As it's an older house, I want to just be delicate and not cause any damage. What's the typical process I should be following to bring the wall down to plaster + prepare it for whatever paint I want to be using? Also, what kinds of paint should I be using?

Please see below for a few examples across some walls.

 

[Stevers]

A steam wallpaper stripper is pretty much essential. In conjunction with this a wallpaper scoring tool can be helpful to cut punch through any vinyl paints that might otherwise block the steam.

I'm a great believer in smoothing over whatever you find under there with a chalk based filler (original powdered Polyfilla or similar) rather than skimming over with gypsum which seems to be the modern way, and likely to be attract damp and blister if salts are present.

 

[EmmBee]

Agree steam wallpaper remover could work, though having removed multiple layers and different types of wallpaper, that doesn’t always work on deeper layers/ depending on plaster beneath. We ended up using steamer and hot damp cloths for top layers until getting to animal glue paper layers, at which point used a scraper and putty repair for knicks. The liner and any glue you’ll want to get off too - hot water washing helps with that. Hopefully plaster is in a nice state to paint directly on, we have some “wonky” parts but I’m quite pleased with it and post painting it’s just character at this point (agree with Stevers as we didn’t want to skim coat gympsum if we’re getting back to original plaster!)
We use Earthborn paints which are clay based and have provided great coverage even after a mist coat and single layer.
Good luck