Painting over wallpaper is the cheapest thing you can do and the most likely to cost you twice.
Why it fails
Wet paint softens the paste behind the paper. Seams lift, bubbles appear, and by the time you can see it the paint is holding paper that is no longer holding the wall.
It also makes the eventual removal much harder, because now you are stripping a waterproof layer as well.
What removal involves
Scoring, soaking or steaming, then scraping, then washing off every trace of paste. That last step is the one people skip, and residual paste stops new paint bonding just as well as wallpaper does.
What decides the cost
What is behind it. Wallpaper hung on primed drywall comes off cleanly. Wallpaper hung straight onto unprimed board takes the paper face of the drywall with it — and then the wall needs skimming before anything else happens.
How to tell which you have
Peel a corner in an inconspicuous spot. If it releases with the wall staying intact, it is a normal job. If the surface tears away with it, budget for repair.
Textured wallpaper
Woodchip and heavy embossed papers are slower and messier than flat ones, and they are common in Woodstock houses built in the eighties and nineties.
Interior painting covers the work either way. Finished rooms are on our Facebook page.
