I live in an old house (circa 1935). All the walls, and some of the ceilings, in the house have been covered in lining paper and painted over. In many cases the original wallpaper has not even been removed. This was all done by previous occupants. The finish looks fine, however I recently had a painter in and he wanted to strip all the lining paper and old wallpaper off and replaster the walls prior to painting. Claimed the paper stopped the walls breathing and caused damp. I just got him to go with painting over the backing paper as I thought he was chancing his arm for some additional work. Was he or his there some truth to what he was saying?