Estimating time for wallpaper strip, plaster repair and paint

8 years ago

We are about to close on our first house, and we'd like to redo the 3 upstairs bedrooms before we move our kids in. House is from 1904. There is painted over wallpaper everywhere, two rooms are 13x13 and one 11x11, with a hallway of 11x4. Painted over wallpaper on plaster is everywhere. It's very thick and looks bad. Even the ceilings may have this- they certainly have at least a ton of paint over cracks. I'd like to strip the paint off the moldings too- will probably buy a convection heat stripper to do so.

We'd like to try to do this ourselves as we want to move in as soon as we can and pros are booked months out. I have painted before, but not removed wallpaper or repaired plaster. I am pretty handy and am not afraid, and we have money for the right tools and materials.

What we are short on is time. I have a day job, and we have a newborn. My MIL is here to watch the baby, but I will probably be doing most of the work at night and on weekends. We also have to pack up of course.

My wife thinks we can do this in 15 days. I am thinking more like 30 if we are lucky. We currently rent and want to give our landlord a heads up on the move out date. Closing is 15th, I say no way we are ready to move into the new home without paint fumes by the 31st. I can probably spare a couple days off work, but not too many as i just got back from paternity leave.

Am I being too pessimistic? I work hard and am handy, but I don't see us finishing this in 14 days or less. My big fear is the time for plaster repair. If it was just strip and paint I may be able to get it done if everything goes smooth.

Thanks.

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Comments (5)

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Christopher Nelson Wallcovering and Painting
8 years ago
I would say you were closer to the truth than your wife. I would guess( and guess it is) 10 days minimum for me and I do this all the time
greenlaker7 thanked Christopher Nelson Wallcovering and Painting
User
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
Three to four times the worst estimate you can think of as part-time DIY, even with MIL to watch the baby and wife working 10 hour days.

1 - You'll never know what is under the painted wallpaper until you remove it. I found gaping holes that had been covered over with old shoe boxes, then papered-over, then painted later. So I had to strip wallpaper, then patch plaster, and only then could I paint.

2 - Plaster repairs when wallpaper reveals cracks. You do NOT want plaster chips with lead paint falling where you have infants and toddlers, so the plaster has to be patched and primed.

3 - LEAD PAINT FUMES ... do NOT heat strip old painted trim unless you have full protective gear and excellent ventilation. Use the paste or gel strippers and scrape. (If your wife is breastfeeding, she should NOT be messing with lead-based paint!)

4 - Weird paint problems. Assume one coat of alcohol-based white shellac primer to seal in something. We found iron oxide paint (old-style barn paint) and calcimine (basically tinted whitewash). The first had to be sealed in because it bled through everything, the other had to be scrubbed off inch by inch so the next coat didn't peel off.
greenlaker7 thanked User
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Hi--I would imagine it would be easier to remove wallpaper from plaster walls than sheetrock. Some people swear by wallpaper steamers, and if that sounds easiest to you then check it out. I've never used one before, so I can't say. My own experience removing up to 14 layers of old wallpaper from the plaster walls of our early 1890's home involved scraping off the outer layer(s) of stiff, painted-over paper with a razor scraper, and then using a warm solution of DIF wallpaper remover rolled on with a paint roller on the remaining layers, scraping it all off with a putty knife and razor scraper. It takes time, but it really depends on the papers/adhesives used and the condition of the underlying plaster. The remaining glue and remover residue is then washed off with TSP. Expect some cracks and other decay in the plaster, and understand that old plaster can look really-really bad and still be salvageable, depending on how much effort you want to put into it. Our repaired plaster walls have some imperfections, and I came to realize that it was unrealistic to expect that they'd ever have the perfectly smooth appearance of sheetrock walls, but I love them all the same. Good luck and don't get discouraged--old plaster walls that have been saved are a wonderful surface and you won't regret bringing them back.
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Ok - a small update. I went to our local paint/wallcovering store and she said while it is possible to put another layer on (after gluing down any lifted areas) that it would be best if I stripped and then re-papered. She then showed me a book with textured papers in it that were already colored, and she pointed out a gorgeous plaster look-alike that I loved, and it will eliminate the step of painting for me, which frees up more energy and time for me to strip the wallpaper. I don't know why it didn't dawn on me to find a textured paper that was already finished instead of the type that needs paint. DOH! But, anyways... I think that is the way I am leaning - strip the current layers, re-paper in a faux plaster wallcovering.
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Most of the info you find online is from folks who are stripping modern wallpaper off of sheetrock, and stripping very old wallpaper off of plaster may take a different technique. Sheetrock has a paper layer on top, and if its painted before paper is applied, the wallpaper does not stick that tightly. However, wallpaper that has been applied to raw plaster really sticks to it. I tried perforating the paper withe paper tiger and spraying the wall with remover, but in most areas it didn't really break the old paper loose and I just got small strips to come off. Then I used a steamer and stripped off the larger pieces of wallpaper. Mine appeared to be patterned wallpaper on top of a white wallpaper-like finish that had been applied when the plaster was new. I first stripped off whatever I could using the steamer and paper tiger, but there was still a lot of small sections left on the wall. I then used the steamer and a razor blade (in a holder) held at a very slight angle to strip off all the remains. I am right handed, so I held the steamer on one section with my left hand while I scraped paper off with my right hand and continued to work from right to left. This was a slow process, but I did get it all off. I then hired a guy to strip my living room wall and his technique was different. He steamed it much more and was able to get both layers of paper to break loose fairly quickly. However, he used so much steam that the water dripped down between the baseboard and wall, and onto the concrete walls in the basement below, and he had to paint those walls to cover the streaks after he was done. My technique was slower, but his was much messier because of all the hot steam. Bruce
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weedyacres
8 years ago
The problem is that you don't know how the wallpaper was adhered, or how bad the plaster repair will be until you dig into the project. I'd probably assume the worst and give yourself a month, especially if you've got to pack in this time frame. If you don't have any awful surprises, 15 evenings/weekends should be sufficient to do 3 rooms and a hallway. But like lazy said, you could have surprises.

A $50 wallpaper steamer worked best for me when stripping off the 6+ painted layers in our old house closets. It came off pretty easily, easier than steaming it off drywall actually.

We did a bit of plaster repair, mostly shoring up cracks with Big Wally's Plaster Magic. I had a dozen cracks shored up in a few hours. Then there's a few skim coats to make it pretty again, and in our case I had to spray orange peel texture on them, to match the existing walls.
greenlaker7 thanked weedyacres
kats737
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
Can I just offer up a suggestion on matching old and new drywall? It took a little bit of time, but this is how I prepped our new walls to match existing plaster walls with 90 years of paint coats:

rough nap roller with Sheetrock First Coat Drywall Primer
rough nap roller with Primer
smooth nap roller with finish coat of paint
smooth nap roller with finish coat of paint

I know it seems like a lot of steps but the primers dry fast, and you can keep the rollers covered up in between coats. I was really happy how it turned out and joined the various surfaces together.

Are you looking to strip the wood down to bare for staining? Or just trying to get a clean surface to thin down how much paint is on there? If you are doing the former, then you are adding potentially a lot of time to the job.
Bruce in Northern Virginia
8 years ago
On old wallpaper a steamer works the best, but it may require a lot more water than you expect. I followed the steamer directions and since the wallpaper was adhered really well it took a long to time to break it fully loose. I also had a lot of leftover bits and pieces on the wall and had to go back over it once or twice to clean up the remnants. I used single edge razor blades in a handle, scraping nearly flat to the wall so that I would not gouge the plaster. It worked, but went quite slowly. There were some evenings after work where I only got about 1-2 drops off of a wall before I ran out of time.

I hired a company to do the main floor of the house and found out they had a much more aggressive approach with the water. They steamed and steamed it with lots of water and did not go through manual scraping unless absolutely necessary. However, one issue was that there was so much water used that it dripped down to the unfinished basement below and I could see it dripping down the rim joist and onto the cement wall. My basement walls were painted cement and they had to go back and repaint them because of the visible water runs on the wall.

Bruce

Estimating time for wallpaper strip, plaster repair and paint

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Christopher Nelson Wallcovering and Painting

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