Walls and Wood chip wallpaper ...what on earth were they thinking?????

Some bright spark decided in 1972 to wallpaper the entire house in the now vilified wood chip wallpaper using what seems like concrete as the adhesive... Below is the starting point..AAAhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So here's the quick guide

1-Sort any damp or water ingress so wall is dry.. in above case sealing and re-pointing the main chimney

2- Use a wall paper stripper and allow the steam to properly melt the adhesive so you can scrap off all glue residue

3- Check for damaged and blown plaster by tapping for hollow sounds as the plaster is not adhered to the brickwork and dig out the damaged area until sound

4. Sand wall until as smooth as possible and all imperfections are highlighted . Use PPE as lead paint likely on wall

5. Fill all holes with plaster or Polyfilla and resand . Use a PVA agent if you are plastering onto raw brick

6. Fit coving to the wall to ceiling joint for best finish. I use plaster coving and tack the coving with the adhesive glue with clout nails to hold in place along your pencil marker line until glue is dried . Remember to score the wall with a Stanley knife to provide a good adhesion base

Then add the adhesive glue to the coving base and top to seal joint and wipe excess glue off with a wet cloth

Next sand, repair with wood filler , undercoat and add two coats of gloss to the skirting board and architraving around the doors

Now you can paint or wallpaper

I always use a primer and undercoat mix as the first coat and then two coats of washable paint- silk emulsion is good

Or add quality lining paper horizontal to the wall by pasting the wall first

I like to find quirky designer wallpaper on ebay/gumtree sold as end rolls at good prices

Then draw your vertical line using a spirit measure as your starting point and paste the wallpaper and add in vertical drops smoothing with a cloth from the vertical line outwards and then trim edges with a new sharp stanley blade and metal square

Results as below!!!!!!!!!!

Having a bit of fun adding a 4 m x 3 m World Map to the library