Paint vs re-wall papering whole house?

cc15, Jun 8, 1:48am
Please HELP! We have a house that needs a lot of TLC to the walls. 13 year old wall paper no longer available, so do we paint the whole interior of the house or do we put up wall paper again? Which will be cheaper & less time consuming? Should we do this ourselves or get in a pro?
Can I get away with putting new paper over the top of the old paper or do I really need to strip it first? We are doing up to sell, we dont want to spend a fortune but we are realistic and realise this will cost us time and money.
I thank you for any advice.

nonumbers, Jun 8, 4:51am
One old villa I bought had 6 or so layers of wallpaper and the hardest to get rid of was the original 1930s layer. If the wall paper isn't damaged or lifting too much painting would be quicker and cheaper IMHO.

laurenlee, Jun 8, 4:58am
If you paper over the previous layer,do paste the new paper first,for a secure fix.

ang_ck, Jun 8, 4:59am
I spoke to a builder once about walls that had layers of wallpapers. He said that by the time you stripped the wall paper and get the professionals in to prepare it for painting;the time, effort and money spent, is about the same price as smashing the wall and put a new gib board.

cc15, Jun 8, 7:06am
Thank you for your feedback nonumbers, laurenlee and ang_ck. I appreciate it we will keep painting over the existing wall paper I think :-)

zak410, Jun 8, 9:29am
That will work if the wall paper is well glued to the Gib.
First go with 'Stanley knife' and trim any excess wallpaper on the skirting boards or along architraves etc. re-glue loose bits with pva, then seal before patching any defects, fix and seal those and it is now ready for top coats.

jhan, Jun 8, 11:58am
I reckon and the end result is better.

..pip.., Jun 8, 7:28pm
Yep leave the old stuff up. The fact that previous people didn't strip back often means it's better the devil you DONT know.

annies3, Jun 9, 1:28am
Ours was totally stripped back including scrim, easy ! we left the sarking boards of course then gibed over them, finished with paint surface.
I saw one recently which had been renovated painting over the wall paper the edges on skirting and around doors was rough sadly, as above if this is what you choose to do then do prepare it properly first.

directorylist, Jun 9, 1:46am
Worked out that way for me.

Doing the walls in my bedrooms worked out at a material cost of $300 on average per room including insulation in the exterior walls.
i taught myself how to plaster along the way and ended up with a decent job.

trade4us2, Jun 9, 11:32am
My house had 25 layers of wallpaper, newspaper, scrim and paint. I took it all off to show the panelled Kauri underneath.

blueviking, Jun 9, 9:51pm
Works out about $80 m2 to strip the gib, insulate the walls, re-gib, plaster and paint.Then add tip fees or just get a bin in. This is the best way.
Cheapest way, to make a quick buck in the Auckland market, just paint the wallpaper and let the new owner worry about it. Or, don't do anything, except paint over the worst wall and call it a feature wall.

tahnasha, Jun 10, 12:01pm
I looked at the prices of wallpaper from Resene not long ago, OMG when did wallpaper get so expensive.

rainrain1, Jun 10, 11:53pm
Holey moley, that's a wee dag,

springgrove, Jun 12, 3:14am
Have a problem now with sons house hall way. We took out a door and gibbed over the space now we have wall paper everywhere in the hall but not over the gib. Can't match paper, have tried to convince them to strip off the paper as we can see it lifting at the edges. They are not keen but we see it as a win now rather than wait till further down the track.

springgrove, Jun 12, 3:17am
Well done you, that's a tricky thing to master. Our lounge had to be redone three times and we are still not that happy with the finish. These were guys recommended by others as having great workmanship, alas not on our walls/ceiling.

voyager4, Jun 14, 11:57pm
I have a personal dislike of painted walls, they always 'feel' cold, or the rooms do anyway. I stripped and scraped all the paint off the walls and papered, much nicer, and if necessary, easier to hide uneven gibbing. Have watched painters with new houses, they didn't seal the walls, and sprayed, not rolled, and after wards the paint was so thin you could see the smallest of imperfections - ruined what was a lovely new house. I could see that in future if the walls were repainted there was a chance it would flake because of poor preparation.

groovie1, Jun 15, 1:21am
I prefer wallpaper but I've wallpapered a house in the past, it was time consuming and a pain in the proverbial. Never again. The cheapest, fastest and only way I'll go nowadays with any wallpaper I encounter is rolled on paint (undercoat and two top coats) straight over the top which is what I ended up doing throughout our 1960s house after of course gluing down lifted edges/corners and sugar soaping the walls. Two years later its still looking good.

reggienz, Jun 15, 9:34pm
I have that vinyl coated washable wallpaper. Can that be painted over with a water based paint?

johotech, Jun 15, 9:52pm
You need to use oil based pigmented sealer for the first coat.

pskpinks, Dec 12, 9:44am
Oil based pigmented sealer isn't meant to be used over vinyl wallpaper. Try Wallpaper Sealer.