PAINTING OLD PLASTERED WALLS

[jmanjmanj]

Hi
I have recently stripped wallpaper from my 1950's house. The plaster beneath is okay (ish) but I have made a number of ruts and dents in the plaster with my scraper.

I have removed all the adhesive with sugar soap and washed the walls again with clean water.

Is there something I can buy from B&Q or other store that I can paint on(kind of paintable filler or something) that will fill all the hairline cracks and scraper dents and ruts and provide me with a good finish ready for painting?

On some of the walls (that were previously painted under the wall paper) I have removed some of the paint. So some walls I have a couple of bare patches of plaster showing through the old paint. I don't want to just paint over as you will see the patches. I was thinking of sanding and applying a thin layer of filler before I paint???? Is this okay or is there something else I should be doing?

Many thanks

 

[CO2000]

I replied the below to someone else it may well be of use (or what not to do )

My house is nearly 70 years old & I initially went down the smoothover route as I had the whole house to do and the walls were in very good condition apart from a few digs & scrapes as it was a well kept one owner house with only one layer of wall paper & the original ceiling paint underneath.
On my first room a 4x4 bedroom (metre’s not off roader ) After removing the old dried wall paper paste & ceiling paint by a sander I found for smaller area’s the smooth over works very well but still needs sanding as its nigh impossible not to leave tracks/ridges etc etc but as its so easy to sand its not a problem.

I ended up with a really good smooth wall using a 500w halogen light for seeing all the imperfections but I did find though that although I had covered all the digs/dents when it came to painting I had pin holes that I thought would fill with paint but didn’t (tried Polycell base coat & Polycell flexible ceiling paint but they didn’t really make much difference)
I had to bite the bullet & go back with a small blade & fill in all the little holes & then go & sand it all down again, knackerd a Black & Decker third sheet sander along the way but bought a better Bosch variable speed one that seems to be much better although I finish sanding with a 3m rubber hand block.

I had a good look on here for an alternative to smooth over as it was going to end up too expensive to do the whole house this way & I would be just as well getting a Plasterer in to skim the lot. I tried Gyproc joint filler & it seems to be just a good if not better & is far, far cheaper only prob is it is light tan in colour & if touching up a white painted wall/ceiling it is harder to cover with paint so I just now use the white smoothover for the finishing touches
I have moved onto another bedroom now & I will be far fussier it filling all the holes & another thing I’ll do is cover the lot in plaster sealer once filled as although watered down emulsion worked in 95% of the area in the first room I had a few issues with peeling paint which hopefully the sealer will address.

Due to time & dust issues (2 kids to think about) I will probably go to a plasterer for the rest downstairs but it has been an interesting project (apart from the peeling paint bit)

Hope you get on well but if its a near full skim you need then I don't think Smoothover is the most cost/time effective way, small patches yes, full skim no. (that probably goes for easyfill/skim etc unless you have all the right gear & can use it well)

Give us an update as to how you get on.

Cheers,

Co.

 

[jmanjmanj]

thanks - i'll have a crack (no pun intended) at filling and sanding the patches, see how I get on and if its a real bother i'll get the plasterer in!

 

[Bon]

I agree with CO2000, it depends on the size of the area that is bad.

Our house was originally 2 houses but was converted to 1 house and the gable end re-built.

When we moved in we stripped the walls in the lounge/dining room so we could re-paint. As the majority of the walls were OK (due to only being around 12 years old) we went down the Smoothover route however the oldest two walls were in a pretty bad way.

To try and "save" a bit of money we tried to patch up the old walls as best we could.

When we did the spare room we had the same issue but decided to get a plasterer to come and skim the old wall. I now really wish we'd done that downstairs.