"A couple of years ago they were talking about manufacturing a wallpaper which could very easily be peeled off when you're ready to re-decorate." That's Sherwin-Williams EasyChange wallpaper. Haven't used it but may well do so here once the walls are de-textured (I hate textured walls to begin with and PO did a crap job to boot). I think there are some really nice patterns in that line, ranging from very modern prints to classic florals and toiles - others may of course disagree. IMO many people dislike wallpaper because of a backlash from the overuse of faddish papers like the proverbial 1980s beribboned geese and country plaids LOL or giant orange-and-green flowers from the 70s rather than classic patterns or from the hassle of removing improperly applied paper. I really like wallpaper as long as a) it's not used to excess unless the house's architecture is suited to it, b) the scale and style of the paper is suited to the space it's in (for instance, a very large room with high ceilings might need a paper with a great deal of "negative space" to avoid being overpowering, but in a little powder room you can get away with a wowzer dense print that would overwhelm in larger doses) b) it's not the cheap, shiny vinyl junk. But then I'm not the fickle type who wants to change colors every other year - those folks are probably better suited to just paint.

"Have you ever even used either product??? That statement is just ludicrous. " Gardz was formulated to seal torn drywall, Kilz will not even come close to the performance of Gardz, not even on the same planet, get real." I have tried both of them. "Formulated" is in the eye of the manufacturer and the advertising department. I could care less about what the sales garbage says. "Latex Kilz product are highly marketed, over rated primers. If you were a professional painter and did this for a living you would know this. " I actually prefer shellac to avoid adding ANY water to the damaged surface, guess you missed that. The only reason to put anything on damaged drywall before repairing the surface is to reduce the movement of water from joint compound into the damaged cardboard causing any further swelling. Setting compound does a lot better than premix. You can use only as much water as you need to get a mix for skimming. Failing to remove left over paste before finishing is just foolish, and is not the issue here. Any coating is not being used as a primer to improve adhesion of the paint, just to block some moisture. Just about any primer will work for this, and it is going to get buried under a layer of drywall mud when the area is skimmed. Anyone who knows how to reportage damaged drywall and skim coat would know this. The painters do NOT know (ever watched them try to fix plaster?). They paint things, not install and repair walls.

Hi Rhoda - thanks for coming by to take a look. I referred to your blog as I did this project and it was incredibly helpful. Keep up the good work! Hockeymom I'll take a picture of the edges and post it. You can kind of get an idea by looking at the picture above with the clamps. I glued the moulding on flush with the edge of the door. On one of the doors I think the moulding went a little over the edge because it rubbed a little against the door next to it when we rehung them. So my son sanded both edges a bit and I had to repaint, but it was fine. I did fill in the seam between the moulding and the original door. I used spackle pretty liberally, let it dry overnight, then sanded the next morning with an electric sander to get it smooth. I think Rhoda used caulk. Any place I missed got filled in pretty well with paint. It was a little easier to have the wallpaper go almost all the way to the edge of the door (that happened on the hall cabinet doors, but the laundry room doors were too wide for a single sheet to go entirely edge to edge). valinsv - I was a little nervous about using the mitre saw, but my son (he's 19) stepped right up and started cutting angles with no problem. I had him do a couple of trial cuts first just to be sure that the 45 degrees was exact (it was). The guy we bought the saw from showed me how to use it. Next project for my son's summer break from college: baseboards! Lynn I might have to go to Albuquerque in the next couple of weeks. I've seen the pictures you've posted of your beautiful house - I'd love to help, but you're so talented I'm sure you'll have no problem with this kind of project.

If I don’t wish to remove the current multiple layers of wallpaper on my plaster walls would using paintable wallpaper over them make it any easier to remove later than simply painting over them? There are parts of the old paper that would need repaired before we could do either. If you want to know the why to this question read on, its long, but I have very strong feelings about why I don’t wish to try to remove this paper. The full situation: We’ve been slowly remodeling our early 20th century house. Most of the walls are plaster except for the back half of our upstairs which was added later and is wood paneling. Every inch of the house is covered in wallpaper. The original plan was to eventually drywall the paneled rooms upstairs and to remove the wallpaper to the original plaster downstairs. Re-doing walls however is much further down our current to-do list so in the interim I’ve painted over the wallpapered-paneled bedroom walls. I’ve learned from this that if the wall and paper is in good shape you can barely tell there is even wallpaper under it, but if they are not every imperfection will show. Here is the before and after of my daughter’s room. Even knowing it’s painted wallpapered I always have to look very hard to find the seams. In our bedroom however I see the creases in the paper the minute I walk in (it’s still a 1000x better than the old wallpaper was!) I have also now experienced removing wallpaper from old plaster walls and I don’t wish to go through it again. We removed the wallpaper from my son’s bedroom in the old part of the house. The paper removal was itself was fine, but the walls were in terrible condition and covered in lead paint. Dealing with these issues took about 10 weeks. Those walls are beautiful now, but I am in no hurry to repeat the disruption and stress this caused. I am now considering what I want to do with the walls in our main living space downstairs. These have many, many layers of wallpaper on them. We saw evidence of this when taking down some crown trim and from some “helpful” wallpaper removal by our 6 month old pup. We’ve been dealing with the wallpaper, most of which, while dated is at least somewhat neutral in tone. However, we are talking about removing a fake beam in order to be able to place our TV on that wall and the current wallpaper only goes up to it. My husband has talked of putting drywall over the plaster. This not only seems weird to me but problematic in that much of our original trim would likely be damaged in the effort and we would never be able to match it exactly. At this point I feel like our best option would be either to paint the current wallpaper, or to put paintable wallpaper over it and paint that. Would it likely be easier to remove paintable wallpaper in order to restore the walls at some point if that is what is wanted or would it equally hard? I’m almost considering this more for someone who comes after us because frankly the only way I foresee us re-doing these walls the “correct” way would be if we had enough money after my children grow up and leave home to have a professional come in and do them all at once. Honestly, that seems unlikely to me, we’re older, with young kids trying to save for retirement, and college and remodel this house. We’ll be lucky to have enough for retirement and I don’t know that I’d want to stay in such a large house when the children are gone anyway. I know nothing about hanging wallpaper, but I do know how to paint it, so I think that would “easier” for me, and I also can’t imagine texture on every wall, I’d really have to find something super subtle. Anyway, I’m simply not up for removing the paper and dealing with what’s underneath, so what’s the next best thing?