What wall is this? how do I paint it?

[Santocazzo]

Hi all,

First post here! I hope you can help me

I recently moved into a 120 y.o. property. I am in the process of stripping the living room wallpaper, I'd like to paint the walls.

Would you be able to understand from the picture below what is the building material? Would you have any recommendation in terms of priming and painting?

I'm sorry if it's a very, very obvious question, but I'm an absolute beginner :O

 

[Robbie uk]

A very good scraping and rubbing down, apply two coats of Zinsser Gardz. When dry fill and paint as normal.

 

[misterhelpful]

As Robbie says and the Gardz will help bind down any edges of paint that remains. If you did get all of the paint off, you could just mist coat with diluted matt emulsion to 'seal' the plaster before continuing with your chosen finish coat(s), but the first method will probably save you a lot of elbow work in totally removing everything.

Oh, as for what the substrate is, it appears to be just a gypsum plaster - there are various types but the painting method is the generally the same.