Decorating nightmare

lookitsjonno · 14 Jul 2021 at 09:35

Man I thought my walls were bad. If money/time were no object i'd probably take it back to the brick, plasterboard and skim. It shouldn't be a too difficult job, just rip all the plasterboard off and screw some new stuff up with plasterboard screws, probably a DIY job to save yourself some cash (youtube is your friend). Then get a plasterer in to skim and make it pretty.

Only other option is to fill, sand, and neaten it up with lining paper - that screwfix stuff above looks good.

Mason- · 14 Jul 2021 at 10:38

Uhtred said:
I hate the stuff but the wife isn't bothered so it stays. We've got some in the kitchen even and the bit above the cooker hobs is grim. I know it's not particularly dangerous but I don't really want to muck about with it even to wash it down

dLockers said:
Top man thanks. Second question - Who tf thought artex looked good? I mean, it must have been a post war generational thing, but my god? What the hell?

Delvis said:
Yeah I've never understood it

It had a practical use similar to woodchip wallpaper. If you didn't have nice flat ceilings + walls, then the texture of the artex/woodchip would make the unevenness of the ceiling or wall far less visible.

Delvis · 14 Jul 2021 at 10:52

Mason- said:
It had a practical use similar to woodchip wallpaper. If you didn't have nice flat ceilings + walls, then the texture of the artex/woodchip would make the unevenness of the ceiling or wall far less visible.

Right.

How about carpet on walls. We had that in our old house

Uhtred · 14 Jul 2021 at 11:17

lookitsjonno said:
Man I thought my walls were bad. If money/time were no object i'd probably take it back to the brick, plasterboard and skim. It shouldn't be a too difficult job, just rip all the plasterboard off and screw some new stuff up with plasterboard screws, probably a DIY job to save yourself some cash (youtube is your friend). Then get a plasterer in to skim and make it pretty.

Only other option is to fill, sand, and neaten it up with lining paper - that screwfix stuff above looks good.

Except it wouldn't be back to brick, it would be back to straw!

The external walls are dot dab and no problem, it's the partition walls which are this stramit stuff. We took down a wall downstairs soon after we moved in (the shower had been leaking) and the stuff we were pulling out you could put in your rabbit hutch

Uhtred · 14 Jul 2021 at 11:20

tom_nieto said:
Liner paper in good hands can be excellent. Got one of our rooms done by a professional with this after finding similar terrible plaster and previous DIY and it’s still in very good nick over 5 years later.

Yeah this is an option. I wouldn't even contemplate doing wallpaper/lining myself, I just haven't got the patience for it. Are the seams of the paper noticable?

fastwunz · 14 Jul 2021 at 13:43

Surfaces jsut need to be skimmed.

Duke · 14 Jul 2021 at 15:49

Another vote for getting the walls skimmed by a plasterer.

tom_nieto · 14 Jul 2021 at 16:00

Uhtred said:
Yeah this is an option. I wouldn't even contemplate doing wallpaper/lining myself, I just haven't got the patience for it. Are the seams of the paper noticable?

Perhaps we were lucky but there are very few places that I can see the joins. I doubt anyone who didn’t know would notice to be honest.

If I had wiring to do I’d have the lot skimmed.

robj20 · 14 Jul 2021 at 16:07

Uhtred said:
Yeah this is an option. I wouldn't even contemplate doing wallpaper/lining myself, I just haven't got the patience for it. Are the seams of the paper noticable?

Use paste the wall stuff, and you don't get shrinkage so you'll never see any joins, plus use 1m wide paper and you have even less chance.