Decorating living room with a few problems, ideas?

JBuk

JBuk

JBuk

Soldato
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Cumbria
Currently have the living room walls stripped down and carpet removed , so basically a blank canvas

all the walls were wallpapered and state of the plaster beneath looks a bit rubbish but solid enough , except for the chimney breast which got skimmed when I got a multi fuel stove installed, although a slight crack has appeared up the corner beading on one side

how would people go about decorating ?

the fiancée wanted new wallpaper with the chimney breast being the focal point, I’m against the idea of papering close to the stove for safety reasons and because I think it won’t last long term, I don’t mind the other walls being papered though but I think the chimney breast would look odd just painted if the other walls are patterned?

I don’t really want to pay for somebody to skim the walls either

I’m not really sure of the best way forwards, I’m a bit of a perfectionist but I want this low budget if possible as I have a new floor to put in and have another 2 rooms to gut and redo
 
bremen1874 said:
The stove heats the wall to the point that paper would be damaged/catch fire?
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I think its more likely he's concerned it will come loose or split on the joins etc from the heat over time, which is true as at the back of my radiator the lining paper has shrunk and came loose.
 
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What ever you are going to do I would get the room skimmed first it will be quicker and give a better finish regardless of the paper v’s paint debate as either needs the smoothest most consistent wall finish you can get.

Wallpaper seems to be back on vogue and plenty of people paper chimney breasts and have done so for generations make sure what ever you buy is top quality and well applied.

don’t paper the rest of the room and paint the chimney breast it will look horrible.
 
It gets hot ,
sja360 said:
I think its more likely he's concerned it will come loose or split on the joins etc from the heat over time, which is true as at the back of my radiator the lining paper has shrunk and came loose.
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Yep , I’ve read the paper can become stained a little and start to peel at the edges

at least with paint it’s a quick coat to make it look good again
 
a1ex2001 said:
What ever you are going to do I would get the room skimmed first it will be quicker and give a better finish regardless of the paper v’s paint debate as either needs the smoothest most consistent wall finish you can get.

Wallpaper seems to be back on vogue and plenty of people paper chimney breasts and have done so for generations make sure what ever you buy is top quality and well applied.

don’t paper the rest of the room and paint the chimney breast it will look horrible.
Click to expand...

I don’t want to pay for proper skimming tbh , I am going to go over 1 wall with Zinnser gardz then skim myself with a thin coat of easifill just to see how good it looks
 
bremen1874 said:
The stove heats the wall to the point that paper would be damaged/catch fire?
Click to expand...

The walls get warm but probably not enough to ignite any combustibles although accidents can happen , I’m just not prepared to risk it if there’s a better and safer way
 
JBuk said:
I seen that but the chimney breast is skimmed so no need to paper it with liner , the fiancée was looking for a patterned paper
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Might be a little more stable than plaster as it should allow a bit of movement as it expands and contracts with the heat.
 
when we bought this bungalow all the walls had loads of drilled holes in them and chipped plaster.

I got a few boxes of Wilco filler and mixed it a bit sloppy then just spread it over every thing that needed filling with a wide paint scraper- left for few days then sanded whole wall and filled bits I had missed -I painted every wall in every room and 11 yrs later none of the filler has come away and they are still smooth.

If wall papering, paste at least 6 sheets and fold them over chair backs or whatever - once all pasted start hanging with the first one pasted -goes on a treat and no bubbles.
 
thenewoc said:
How about skimming the rest of the walls and then paint the chimney to make that the feature?
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too expensive but I’m going to try skimming one wall with easifill , it needs some skimmed anyways as the original and very old skim coat was peeling off in places
 
JBuk said:
I don’t want to pay for proper skimming tbh , I am going to go over 1 wall with Zinnser gardz then skim myself with a thin coat of easifill just to see how good it looks
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Money well spent and quickly forgotten about by the time you’ve lived in the place a few years!
 
The idea of claiming you're a bit of a perfectionist and then saying you will try to skim yourself to save money just doesn't match

Plastering is one of those that you only get perfect with practice so I'd be very surprised if a novice would even reach the level of perfection that your aiming for.

I've pretty much turned my hand to every part of DIY during my renovation but plastering is one thing I'll happily pay for every time.

I've been there myself and tried filling and sanding imperfections and just ended up wasting time and money when I should have just paid the right guy in the first place
 
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