[Closed] Anyone else hate wallpaper to the point...........

Amen.

Wallpaper always looks awful . Perhaps not immediately. But it'll always end up looking awful.

Yes

Get the walls skimmed, one off cost, never needs done again.

Wallpaper is up there with privet hedges and banging exhausts.

Hate the stuff generally and none in our house.
As already said.... Might be better to get the walls skimmed - you won't beat the finish (unless I did it!).

I have not had good results with skimming - plaster bossing and the thickness making cornices and architraves look odd. I can get a really good finish with filler.

Yep. About to start purging the last of the hateful stuff from our house. Only one room to go!

+1 and don't get me started on this "feature wall" malarkey. Simply hideous, imo obviously.

Never had the stuff, Tourpret fine surface filler is my weapon of choice.

I’ve just moved, every room has textured wallpaper which has been painted over, including the bathroom!

Its going to be a long road ahead ☹️.

I feel dirty because I still have it on one wall in my kitchen.

It looks awful.

I'm removing it with a sledge hammer(along with rest of kitchen and various walls) in April. I can't wait.

Are you sure a sledgehammer is the right tool for removing wallpaper?

Absolutely.

Big licks too.

Got 2 walls coming down , a window and a door coming out and a concrete floor coming up.

I might even stretch to a hiring a jackhammer.

The equivalent of nuking the wallpaper from orbit

I love a bit of wallpaper as long as it’s applied well which is not very often. You need to fill the wall to pretty much the same standard as you would for painting.
It’s a rare skill these days.
We employ hundreds of painters and decorators and I’d estimate that maybe one in ten can make a decent job of hanging paper.

My dad is an old school painter and decorator and is the only person I would trust to put up wallpaper. He's bloody great at it.

I still haven't got any though. Can't stand the stuff!

Had our whole house skimmed to replace the hateful layers of painted wallpaper (almost anyway - still removing woodchip from the hallway).

Of course, we wanted one feature wall in the bedroom. Worth spending a bit more on a nice paper in such instances. It does look good, but ours is let down where it’s been trimmed to meet the ceiling. Much easier to cut in paint.

Depends on the house. It’s verboten in my house. But it’s a new build and the plaster’s ok. My mum and dad’s on the other hand is a 145 year old money pit. There, the wallpaper “assists” the plasterwork in its quest to defy gravity and the bomb damage in the north east corner. The attic has special polystyrene lining paper underneath the wood chip in an attempt to fight off the rampaging heat loss that afflicts the former servant’s quarters.

Lifeˋs too short for wallpapering. Carpets can get in the sea too.

150yr old building here hence the kilos of filler!

Carpets - thats a whole 'nother topic. We have none in the flat - not because we hated them in the abstract but on going to a carpet shop hated everyone on display

I love it in the right place. Have some modern updated William Morris in the hall of our Victorian house. At £70 per roll it was a job for the pros to hang. In fact the decorators subcontracted to a wallpaper expert as it was so specialist. And it looks fabulous. But I’ve hung my last roll, myself any more rooms will be done my someone else. Other pro jobs are carpet and Lino laying.

Just had all the walls depapered, and skimmed. Even the bloody ceiling was wallpapered on the landing. That managed to take a lot of the plaster with it when it came down , so overlaid with new plasterboard before the whole house was skimmed. Looks so much nicer now, even though its not painted yet

TBH it’s one of the household tasks I’m actually good at tbh but yep I do hate the stuff.

Quality wallpaper an reasonable walls do make a difference to putting up.

I’ve got a proper room spraying paint thing sat ready for some fun next weekend,gonna give spray painting walls and ceiling a blast 🙂

Artex swirly schizzle ftw.
Or woodchip.

sledgehammer

Should be used on the person/s who put the wall paper up.

First post in months, that feels much better.

Doesn't seem to matter who hung it /how expensive it was.

Invariably the better the decorator/the more expensive the paper it does look better initially

How ever it always wears horribly and looks naff about 5 years in.

Whole house was covered in it when we bought it 20 years ago. Systematically removed, which was enough to make MrsMC decide we were never having it ourselves. Finally saved up enough to get the kitchen redone which will remove the last hideous oddments

I'm a decorator and also dislike most wallpaper! Consider myself pretty good at slinging it but have to take my time otherwise mistakes happen, you get stressed and make more mistakes as a result it can be a viscous circle.

On old houses it can hide all sorts, dread having to strip it especially woodchip/anaglypta with a gizzilion coats of paint as usually half the ceiling or walls come off with it

3 sessions of fillering now and I think I have found all the dents in the wall. Last round was filling pinpricks!

It’s a rare skill these days.
We employ hundreds of painters and decorators and I’d estimate that maybe one in ten can make a decent job of hanging paper.

Purely down to demand, was a period for years that no one wanted paper on walls, similarly my plasterer moans that he's the best artexer around, but never gets to do it.

Tj, your plasterer mustve been a bit pish mate.

Nobeer - when yo have cornices and fancy architraves and so on skimming is very tricky to get to look right as you add to the thickness of the wall. No issue in more modern buildings

I prefer wallpaper in some rooms - easier to cover up blemishes/imperfections etc and gives better sound qualities, as well as being more interesting than monotone paint (tartan paint is always sold out at B&Q 🙂). Artex, on the other hand, as skimmed over in our house, is the work of the devil…

Tj, your plasterer mustve been a bit pish mate.

As much as it pains me to say it, TJ is absolutely correct.

Skim coating an old room with ornate cornices and moulded skirtings and architraves etc usually creates more problems than it solves.

It’s easier and more effective just to go bonkers with the filler.

Also, I really enjoy hanging paper and over the years I’ve become extremely proficient at it, whereas , for me, painting is always a grind.

’Mon the wallpaper!

Multiple layers of wallpaper were the only thing holding up the walls in our last house! (1880s terrace) When we took it off the plaster and half the bricks came with it.

similarly my plasterer moans that he’s the best artexer around, but never gets to do it.

Your plaster should be doing thousands of hours of community service for the harm he did to the houses of the nation.

There should be an artex amnesty where everyone with the kit to do it can hand it in so we can rid the nation of the threat of it ever returning to sully our walls and ceilings ever again.

Nobeer – when yo have cornices and fancy architraves and so on skimming is very tricky to get to look right as you add to the thickness of the wall. No issue in more modern buildings

Here I sit, in a 19th century hoose, with architraves and cornices abound. My man know how to blend to a feature, that's why it doesn't look shit. 😊

I hate painting anaw patchy, unless it's outside, strangely! 😂

Here I sit, in a 19th century hoose, with architraves and cornices abound.

Very much depends on the profile of the mouldings.

I hate painting anaw patchy

Patchy?....you’ve seen the standard of my painting then.

Bloody auto correct! 🤐😂

I’m in two minds about this...

I think wallpaper can look amazing in a large room - but I’m talking about much larger than you would find in most family homes

Feature walls, I’m not too keen on - either painted or papered.

Given the choice, I do like a nicely plastered wall.

I have found a good plasterer can skim walls with ornate cornices and picture rails in our last home - which was of the more ornate Victorian style.

I also enjoyed hanging paper!  Taking time to get everything perfect is something I greatly enjoyed.

In my first home when funds were tight, I used lining paper in a few rooms (After filling), as I wasn’t that confident in the integrity of the plaster. If you take your time, you won’t see any joins at all. It takes a lot of patience and eye for detail - but it is possible.

I have never seen lining paper where you cannot see the joins.

Sticking my head above the parapet, here but I quite like a bit of wallpaper. Depending on the design I don't even mind hanging it.

I also like carpets. Hard floors have their place, but got fed up of the cold feeling and clomp clomp clomp underfoot so have switched to carpets in some rooms in our house.

How far do you go in fillering doors? I have the original 150 year old 4 panel doors. They have some small bumps and dents in them. Filler and sand back to looking like new or leave some "patina"

How far do you go in fillering doors? I have the original 150 year old 4 panel doors. They have some small bumps and dents in them. Filler and sand back to looking like new or leave some “patina”

Surely one media blasts the years of paint off then stains and waxes then.

That said the previous owner of my gaff removed the wooden doors and replaced them with this dcardbpard egg carton style doors that new builders love because light and cheap.

Spent a small fortune putting in doors that you didn't feel you were going to put your hand through when closing them

NOpe! They would always have been painted.

How far do you go in fillering doors? I have the original 150 year old 4 panel doors. They have some small bumps and dents in them. Filler and sand back to looking like new or leave some “patina”

I’ve recently done* all the doors in my hallway and asked myself the exact same question.  The answer, for me, was to leave a few dings in.

I wanted them  to look their age. So, patina for me.

* removed the hideous hardboard panels, replaced all of the missing panel mouldings, prep and painted and replaced all of the ironmongery bar the hinges on 11 doors.

This is relevant to my interests. I've just removed floor to ceiling shelves and I'm looking at a 10ft by 8ft wall with 72 rawlplug holes. And woodstain over the top of the paint where the shelves were done in situ.

I've been round and chopped the top off the rawlplugs and flaked off the worst of the flakiest paint and the loosest plaster. There are still some places round the holes where the plaster sounds hollow, but it's sound enough.

The proper way to do it would be to take off the rest of the hollow plaster and have it skimmed, but wife's in a hurry for the room, so plan is to get busy with the polyfilla, sugar soap and paint.

How much to skim a wall this size? With a SW of London commuter belt premium? A lot more than it would be if it was one of a load of walls being done at the same time, I'm sure.

How do some of you lot cope with life getting so angry about inconsequential matters?

Just about to wallpaper 2 walls in the next day or two

I’ll pop a photo up if my efforts 😀👍

I also hate wallpaper and have spent ages getting to the point of perfectly flat walls. Then my Son, on asking what he wanted his room decorated like? Asked for “Space wallpaper” :-/

Still, it looked alright in the end.

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Disinherit him!

I have never seen lining paper where you cannot see the joins.

I don’t doubt that - but if I was going to tell fibs about stuff, it would be more about more interesting things than lining paper.😉

I also hate wallpaper and have spent ages getting to the point of perfectly flat walls. Then my Son, on asking what he wanted his room decorated like? Asked for “Space wallpaper” :-/

Still, it looked alright in the end.

That is very cool!  The only feature wall I have ever liked.

4th round of fillering done - I must have all the dents now. Painting the wall white showed up a bunch more dents ! Obsessive? Me?