I had tin tiles in a bathroom in my old house. They were ugly and rusted, but I painted them anyway. Made a HUGE difference and lasted several years! I think we used epoxy paint, but it was a long time ago. I'm sure a paint dealer would sell you the right stuff. It was not hard at all...just like ordinary painting, looked flawless and there were no brushmarks at all...had a high gloss, mirror finish! Easy to keep clean, too. As for wallpaper, I love the stuff. I have it everywhere! I have vinyl type in my kitchen, where I do a LOT of cooking, and it washes easily and well. I have it in my main bathroom, too, and despite all the steam four of us could put it through every day for the past 9 years, it still looks terrific. And those walls were (still are) awful underneath the paper. I think paintable wallpaper is a good suggestion, but why not just use wallpaper and eliminate one process? You will always see the seams on wallpaper, paintable or not, but done correctly, printed wallpaper seams are almost invisible - IMO, they are far less visible on printed than they are on paintable wallpaper. If you didn't notice the bad walls under the old paper, you probably won't be able to see the bad walls under new paper, either. I also think 5 years is not long enough for such an expensive investment as good wallpaper. But, then, I'm not much for change in my house. And whatever paper you use, be sure you size it first!

Well, a home lead test reveals that one or more of the layers of old paint has lead in it. Since it's all cracking and falling off the walls badly, that means that a) it has to be removed, promptly and b) I can't do it myself. I also doubt very much that the landlord is going to pay for a finish coat of plaster. If it's sealed well with a good primer can the paint job be done directly over the rough plaster? That's what seems to have been done under the wallpaper, and in the one original room where wallpaper has apparently never been applied. Karinl, this stuff is falling and I mean falling off the walls. I doubt very much that special tools will be needed to scrape it off. I was washing part of the wall and bumped a crack with my elbow and it promptly sheared off in a 2-foot strip and hung there; just literally fell off. There are huge cracks everywhere. Fortunately, the layers in the living room and bedroom (also graced with the paint-over-wallpaper treatment, but not in nearly as bad a condition) all seem to be lead-free. If I feel ambitious I may take those on myself.

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.

Stripping wallpaper that had been painted is pretty much the same as stripping unpainted wallpaper. The difference that it's just going to take a bit more perseverance to get it off. The main technique to getting wallpaper off is to break the bond between the paper and the original wall surface. Steam, wallpaper remover, moisture all require that it can penetrate through the paper to the adhesive that holds it to the wall. When dealing with painted paper, that process just becomes more tedious but doable. I stripped some paper that was painted and then "textured" with some dry wall compound. Like you I discovered it as it started peeling and creating issues. I used some standard processes and the paper came off but it took a bit more elbow work. Here is a link that might be useful: