I'm not sure I understand your question ...Is the overlapped material underneath the plaster and lath or on the surface? If on the surface, and you don't think it's wall paper or NU-wall, then it may be canvas or some other attempt to either cover-up crumbling plaster or to provide a smooth surface for decorative painting. Why don't you want to remove it? (Other than it being a a nasty job to do.) Have you tried loosening it in a concealed area to assess how hard it would be to remove? You will always see those seams unless you sand them down, which might be a bigger pain than simpy removing the covering. A lot would depend on what your plaster is like underneath and whether you have rough or finish coat as a top surface. Perhaps your plaster is only rough coat and the paper was installed to make it easier to get a smooth finish. Another alternative would be to remove it and get a top coat put on. Or you could just slap a coat of paint over it and move on. As for cleaning, I wouldn't hesitate to use any cleaner, including TSP. Generally I prefer powdered products, rather liquids as I think the powders leave less residue. At the moment I am using up some green powdered laundry detergent, with out enzymes or optical brightening agents, and I like how it's going. (The stuff was a complete dud for laundry, though.) Some people wash with strong ammonia nd water solutions, but I hate that stuff. I have also used Lysol liquid detergents and been satisfied, but now prefer the powdered stuff. I have seen Spic and Span recommended, though I can't stand the smell. Another tactic is to use a steam cleaner. I have a Lady Bug, and while I'm not at all impressed with most of its uses, wall cleaning is something it does do well, though very slowly. (It can also steam wallpaper residue off, so try it first before doing a whole room if you choose to keep whatever is on your walls.) For primer, I have used Kilz and BIN, and both are very good but incredibly stinky to use (you really need to have an open window). Alisande's recommendation for using a good quality primer, is also good, particularly if you decide to just paint over the surface for now. With old houses knowing when to go whole hog and restore like crazy and when to just get things cleaned up and looking fine is the key to a happy life. Sounds like maybe just painting over your wall surfaces (after some cleaning) might be a good choice for you. Happy spring cleaning! Molly

I agree w/prev poster, do a small single room first and see what shape your wall are in. Not worth stripping if you'll have to replace or skim coat anyways. Re stripping, here's what worked for me: Get on of these scrapers... http://ace.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pACE2-960411reg.jpg Get some FAST wallpaper remover (I like better than DIF)... http://www.cornerhardware.com/images/18/18151.jpg Mix the FAST w/hot water in a good heavy duty spray bottle. Mix it a little on the strong side. Let the spray penetrate for a few seconds, then scrape. When you have all the old wallpaper off, you can wash the walls with a mild FAST solution to get all the glue off. Then wash again with something like Dirtex... http://www.cornerhardware.com/images/20/20293.jpg Because of the paint you may have use a paper tiger to score the paint and wallpaper to allow solutions to penetrate... http://www.homeandbeyond.com/dynamic/prod-0074110-prod.jpg Or if it's real bad, maybe a rent a steamer.

"If you wanted to, you could do the repairs with the original lime and horsehair plaster. It just has a rather long delay between when it is complete and when it can be painted. The time is measured in months. " Straight lime putty was not commonly used in the US for plastering, mostly because of the very long cure times. A mixture of lime putty and gauging plaster was a common mixture. The base coat (brown coat) was lime putty, sand, horsehair, and gauging plaster. The second coat (scratch coat) was lime putty, sand, and gauging plaster. The surface was textured when partly set to provide better mechanical bonding for the finish coat. The finish coat was lime putty and gauging plaster. Layers were added when the lower layer was set, but not necessarily dry, to facilitate binding. If the surface dried (like over a weekend) it was dampened before the next layer was applied. The curing time is around a week in a heated space, and after that it can be painted. Bonding to old plaster with Easysand or Durabond often fails since the old material is very dry, and pulls moisture from the new preventing it from curing correctly (Easysand and Durabond cure by chemical reaction, not drying out like pre-mixed joint compound). There are also binding agents. Many are polyvinyl acetate based the same as Elmer's Glue. They are applied to the old edges and allowed to dry until tacky. Old plaster walls intended to be papered may not have a finish coat, but a smooth scratch coat. It is not hard to place a finish coat using bonding agents and modern setting joint compound. A plasterer's trowel makes the job go much faster than trying to cover the large areas with a drywall knife even a wide one). One thing often missed in plaster work is the use of retarders to slow the setting time of the plaster. High temperatures and can result in very short setting times unless retarder is added to the plaster/lime mix. Simply adding more lime usually extends the setting time excessively. "Plastering" by Sawyer is a standard text.

I have an old house from 1780. We bought it last year. Every room is wallpapered. We removed the paper in the kitchen and one bathroom. These rooms had sort of a semi-gloss paint under wallpaper and it wasn't that hard to remove the paper. Now I started in the upstairs hallway and boy that paper is stuck but good. Raw plaster (horsehair) underneath. So I call in the pros who had given me a $300 estimate to remove the paper in both of the hallways and up the stairs. Well after working on just one long wall, they say that it will cost about $3000 since the paper is so well-adhered. So I say stop stripping the paper and what are my options. They suggest sealing the paper and painting over it. I said fine, I can do that. So I tested some primer on it and nary a bubble appeared. So my solution is to just paint over it. Not my preference, but definitely easier on my wallet!