My old house circa 1917 had plaster walls that had cracks. I wallpapered one room and painted over it and it looked good until as you described the wall paper started peeling. We bought a wallpaper remover product, diluted this and sprayed sections of the wall. We then scraped the old wallpaper off and it did not further damage the walls. Some friends recommended a steamer but the sprayer worked well.Good luck with your project.

What I've read is that it was common to put plain wall paper directly on top of relatively fresh plaster, since it provide a very smooth surface that could then be used as-is or painted. I've also found that most of my house has wallpaper directly on plaster.

My wallpaper/paint guy did the following:
- Used a steamer and spray bottle to strip off the old paper. I found it was also very useful to use a razor blade holder and scrape the wet paper almost parallel to the wall. It goes slow, but if you are careful you can get all the paper off without nicking the plaster.
- Used plaster mix (not the same as sheetrock compound!) to patch the cracks and fill in the holes. He also used seam tape if needed to fill and cover wider cracks. Use small amounts and fill gradually. This will minimize the need to sand.
- Used a relatively high nap roller to roll on primer and final paint. The longer nap gives it a little more texture, which hide imperfections better.
Overall the results were great.

I have also done some of my own plaster patching and it is a time-consuming job. The dry plaster mix from Home Depot only stays workable for about 12-14 minutes after you mix in the water, so you mix small batches and patch small areas. However, once it dries it is very sandable and matches the wall very well.

Bruce

It was common practice in houses of this vintage to make plaster walls without a finish coat. The intent seems to have been wallpaper forever. If this is your case, removing the wallpaper will reveal a rough, sandy plaster that would have to have some sort of finish coat applied before painting. It is possible to apply a finish over the existing walls without removing the paper. Start by thoroughly cleaning what's there. Then apply self adhesive fiberglass mesh which comes in rolls up to three or four feet wide. Follow this with coats of joint compound. Lots of work and requires some skill to get a smooth surface, but it can be done.

I'd suggest calling in a plasterer for an assessment and estimate. Although my home is no where near that old (1950's tract home), it does have plaster, although on rock lath not wood lath.

Whenever I painted in the past, I'd always fill cracks with crack compound. It would look nice for a while and then open up again after a year or two. One time I called in a handyman to bridge a crack with tape. While the crack has not opened up, the difference between the taped surface and the rest of the ceiling is very noticeable.

The last two rooms I painted that had cracks, I called in a plasterer beforehand. He undercut the crack and repaired the resulting huge gap with plaster. The job took just that day and the result was excellent. It's been 4 years so far and those cracks have not reappeared and it's impossible to tell where the repair was made.

My 1913 house had at least 3 layers of wallpaper in each room. In most of the rooms, when the wallpaper came off, big chunks of plaster came off with it. I called a contractor to give me an estimate. He told me "lady, it's gonna cost you a whole lot". We didn't have a whole lot. So I purchased buckets of spackle and spackled the smaller sized holes. For the larger sized holes I cut pieces of dry wall to fill most of the gap and screwed them in place to the wood that was behind the broken plaster. Then I spackled over the remaining gaps. I had to go over the patched places with more spackle when it dried because the spackle had a tendency to shrink. In some places I used special tape that looked like netting If the holes weren't too big, then spackled those as well. After sanding the patches, I primed and painted. It's been 10 years and the walls are still holding up. I don't want to steer any one in the wrong direction but this worked for me.

This is an old question but I just came across it, I have the same issue. akamainegrower described it exactly. 1900's house, thick painted wallpaer over all the walls and ceilings. in some rooms I can pull off the loose layers in one easy tug and the rough sandy intact plaster is what'is left, often with a watered down looking paint color, if it weren't so old I would say it's a wallpaper prep of some sort since the paper peeled off so easily. I am wondering what are the best steps to go forward, I would like to repair the cracks etc. the apply a primer, and a layer of drywall compound to do a knockdown texture, the re-paint. Any suggestions?

Thanks so much...looks like a very big job ahead, no wonder people just layered on the wallpaper!!

monwheels: If I remember correctly, there was a good, well illustrated article about this process in Fine Homebuilding magazine a few years ago. You should be able to find the right issue number online. Then a library ought to have a copy of the correct issue.

If its the old wheat paste, it comes off very easily with hot water and a scrub brush - stuff just dissolves. Very easy job, but messy!

Can you post a pic - to the uninitiated, a few cracks can look terrifying .... but in reality can be easy for a diy'er to tackle (I dont use mesh tape - just bonding agent in the crackto adhere old plaster to new and then wet-sand flush.)

However if wide swaths of it have failed then thats where youd prob want to call in a professional to restore (or look into drywall patch method.) The method mentioned above of adhering a special fabric to entire wall and then skim coat over can be used too but if its just a few cracks then thats kind of overkill, imho.

If you have a finish coat of plaster with a few cracks it's certainly possible to slightly enlarge them then and patch them directly on the wall. What we're talking about here, though, is a wall without any finish coat. For this you need something that wil allow the joint compound ( using actual plaster is way beyond the skill level of most people) to bond with the wall. This is the purpose of the mesh. If you try to place joint compound directly on the wall, you will have an uneven surface that will quickly become contaminated with sand and will dry too fast to be durable. What monwheels intends to do is use joint compound in several thin coats to coat the entire wall. This is very different than patching a few smallish cracks.

There are times to hire a pro and plastering is one of them. Patching with fiberglass followed by a skim coat will work well, but please don't use joint compound! It's the wrong product for the job-- use a real setting plaster intended as a top finish coat. Your plasterer will know what to use. Several people mention sanding-- you don't sand plaster. It's difficult, and you will degrade the nice flat, smooth surface. Your pro should give you a perfect finished surface right off the trowel. My guy told me that it took him about two years of working 10 hours a day to get to the point where he could reliably finish a wall, so the learning curve is a bit long for DIY efforts.

I was responding to Monwheels who has only a few cracks +skimcoat - indeed very do-able by anyone with some arts& crafts ability. The roughcoat + finish plaster can be bought at a specialised bldg supply store (not HD or Menards.) Ive just used Gardz on repairs + any raw plaster Ive found but OP might want to research which primer if its very old type of plaster

Yes a bit of a learning curve - but generally worth it for old house owner if there are more rooms with issues than just the one. The skill set needed for crack repair is nowhere near what is necessary for a big job re-doing a whole wall of traditional 3 coat old style lime plaster over lath or board.

Thats assuming one is using a bonding agent in place of mesh tape that sits on the surface - I would agree that amateurs do NOT do well with mesh tape. I had to undo all the crack repairs my PO had blobbed on -they looked like giant scabs all over the walls!

My plaster guru taught me that mesh tape or any of the fabric bridges should NOT be used - reason being it shouldnt be recracking again in any major way -but if it does you want to be able to get at it to fix it again and/or address the problem thats causing it (may have been a poor quality application to begin with). FWIW, repairs I did 10-20 yrs ago are still holding with no sign of recracking.

But as the saying goes, your mileage may vary. Theres a lot of different approaches to how to repair old plaster, and all old houses are different.

Current Resident : monwheels wrote that beneath the easily detachable wallpaper there's "rough, sandy intact plaster." That is a pretty far cry from "only a few cracks + skim coat". Ordinary joint compound is not the best material to use for extensive wall repair, but there are types that are completely suitable and much easier for a novice to use than actual plaster. Check out the Fine Homebuilding article for much more extensive information.