When you apply wall paper over plaster/drywall you should first prime the wall - with paint. It looks to me like they glued over raw plaster. The tan color is the color of the wall paper backing.

Hello, thanks for your note. Which tan color were you referring to (so many tones of brown on that wall). However, I feel confident in saying that there is no wallpaper backing shown on this wall. I've taken it all off as a separate part of the process already.

There might have been another layer of wallpaper underneath the one you are taking off, on that wall. It could be the backing from that one, and maybe was left when new wallpaper was put on, because, it was put on plaster without having a prime coat and paint. ?

Depending how old your house is, they used to put a layer of brown paper over raw plaster walls. This was then meant to be painted or papered over. It was not meant to be removed and it is very bonded to the original plaster. We did a skim coat over ours - seemed a little less frustrating.

As a PP mentioned, some plaster walls had a layer of paper over it that is meant to be kept on. My 1920s home has that. When I asked my painter about removing that 'wallpaper,' he said he could but he'd then need to do a coat of skim coat (joint compound? plaster? I don't know - thin, evens out plaster bumps). Its a job that a pro can do in about an hour for short $, but I think very difficult for a DIY person like me. (We left the wallpaper on, and he 'skimmed' only the damaged sections - then primed and painted all latex.) Hope that helps.

It sounds like I am certainly not alone in dealing with difficult wallpaper removal! Thanks for all these replies so far. None of these issues are paper or other layers of wallpaper, though. All those colors in the picture of the wall (grey, browns) are indeed distinct-looking and from a distance might seem like paper, but aren't. I wish it were! The grays are plaster, with some glue on the surface, and the brownish is some other sort of glue.

I'm thinking that maybe some of these areas were a skim coat? If that is the case, should I just remove it down to the bare original plaster, since the skim coat is all dinged up anyways?

Well, I think the brownish residue I mentioned (calling it 'problem 1') is sizing, because I just saw this on Hunker.com

"Wallpaper hangers apply sizing to painted walls before hanging the wallpaper, because it makes installation easier and also facilitates in future removal of the wallpaper. While the wallpaper may be easier to remove on a sized wall, the glue residue and sizing itself can be very difficult to remove. If you're left with brown residue on the wall despite scrubbing and sanding, that's the sizing. "

That sounds just like what I'm dealing with, although I have no idea why it was just under one wall and not 3. Perhaps the original owners wallpapered only one side of their room? (owners #2 just wallpapered all 3) ...and fortunately that article mentions that I can paint over it without removing it. Which is good, because I had almost given up.

And I think the other grey/white plaster must be skim coats put down as part of owner #2's wallpaper. Is it ok just to scrape this skim coat off?

Angle grinder should do it.

a lot of sanding, and smoothing will probably work, but, I think you would be much happier overall, if you hired a good drywall man to come in and put on a skim coat on just that wall. In any case, before you paint, put on a coat of guardz primer, to seal either all the mess you have now, or the skim coat, that would be the best way to do it.

You have done great work and you are really close! I would clean that wall with a mild vinegar water solution and a scrubbie pad to get off as much of the glue/ sizing that you can. I would then use SHELLAC primer on everything. Now you can see where you have to do repairs- likely some sanding of lumps and filling of low spots with drywall compound. Once that is done you can use regular water based primer and your top coat. You can certainly use a palm sander with 150 grit paper if you want or hand sanding (palm sander is faster)

Apparently they often used wall paper over new plaster walls because it was an alternative to paint. New plaster had to cure/dry, and I'm told that in the "old days" they used to tell folks to wait 30 days before painting. If you didn't want to wait that long you could use wall paper instead. In my house the original paper is still on the ceilings, and it has a bottom layer of light brown paper and an upper layer that is white.

I have found a few walls where they left that original white paper and added new wallpaper over the top. The original paper is usually really hard to get off without putting divots in the walls or by using large applications of steam. It does not come off like regular wallpaper.

Bruce

I'm back again after procrastinating a while and eventually tackling that wall. I've gotten to another crossroads and started a new discussion thread here. I benefitted a lot from your insights...and would love any further suggestions you have (probably better to add comments to the new thread as it will pertain to the updated pics it has there): https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5732807/repairing-priming-nightmare-wall-what-materials

thank you!

I know this is an old thread but I can ‘t believe your photos because they look exactly like my wall Underneath the wallpaper I removed. How did you make out with completing it?