Comment posted to How to strip woodchip wallpaper by Liam.

Glad to see i’m not the only one that hates wood chip walls. i’ve just spent the past 18 months renovating my victorian flat (complete with every “fashionable” upgrade since 1920). When it comes to this stuff my formula for a perfect finish is to simply remove it all and replace it or:

(a)Walk into your newly acquried property and hire a skip
(b)select an area to refurb bearing in mind any wiring requests, (e.g shared sockets, aerial splices between rooms, alarm system wire hiding etc).
(c)test the walls by pushing the lathe plaster with your hand patricularly near windows/boilers or any heat exit/entrance, if it deflects under light pressure, grab a flat faced garden spade, smack it hard off the wall and use it too scrape ALL the plaster off. (Note: seal all doors prior to this and open all windows, wear a mask!). Do this for the whole wall. It is a lot easier/cheaper to replace a whole wall than it is to patch and repair quarter a wall. finish will be better too.
(d) Have a joiner Re-rig and/or prepare/repair wooden frames if yours is looking ropey, fix this to brickwork and remove all lathework plus nails
(e) Buy new plasterboard ensuring all holes for sockets etc are in roughly the area thats needed. Cut to rough size for the room (within 5mm of each other) and Screw in with plaster screws long enough to penetrate wooden rig. Dont use nails or anything metal that rusts. TIP: buy polyproylene backed thermal plasterboard for extra insulation on the ceiling and/or foil backed plasteroard for walls. Use this opportunity to pack voids with rockwool and rewire the walls/seal up old fireplaces etc). For ceiling plastering you will need a plasterboard leveling and lifting tool. origin unknown ask Jewsons. I used Wolsely for hardware.
(f) After studying the plasterers trade, who came round to skim my walls, go to hardware store, buy plaster mix, noting that “filler” plaster mix is grey and pretty much is light cement and that the final coat is the finishing plaster mix, normally pinkish/brownish. This dries to a dirty white colour. One is rough, the other smooth. One is used for filling holes, the other to give a paintable surface. You get the idea. If you want to, buy the steel grating to sharpen wall corners, nail to the wooden beading. Tape up edges of, with the textured tape to give smooth transition. Fill in large holes with plasterboard. Plaster over with the correct mix and flat levelled tools, wetting edges when complete, sanding when dry.Seal up any doors etc prior to this extremly messy affair. The fine plaster dust will, repeat, will, cover the whole house plus the garden shed.
(g) leave all new plaster for 4 DAYS (not months!) minimum or until is obviously dry (white colour)
(h) seal with PVA glue or diluted wallpaper paste or two coats of cheap paint to form a uniform layer of identical porosity, this gives uniform absorption and drying times for your final coat of paint. The reason for sealing is all about paint application and avoiding those dark patches that appear when your admiring your so called handy work 6 months down the line…
(i) paint your final colour, leave for a week to dry, paint again if needed! buy water based paint for easy dilution and clean up. mop the floors at least 4 times to remove plaster dust/paint. (saves cleaning the whole property 20 times).
(j) if wall paper or wood chip exists, a steamer is a definite must have, plus two scrapers, a 24 pack of beer, some smokes and 3 of your mates. dont scrape if your going to remove the wall anyhow! i remove it all, dont waste your elbow grease and risk denting the plaster which would require further skimmining anyhow, rip it off and bin it once and for all………
(k) if you wish, remove all skirting boards to re-route wires, note that for newly cut, typical victorian style skirting boards will cost you £500 (fitted) for a lounge sized room. £300 machine set up and fabrciation, plus £150 for quality fit. Note this is pretty expensive but looks the part and will last another 100 years…..professionally stripping paint from existing skirting boards will cost you £200 anyhow……failing that sand and paint with matt paint. (vinyl will make future colour changes a nightmare).
(l) buy old style victorian doors from an antique refurbisher. mine cost £150 but looks 1000% better than old shoddy 1960′s door that was in its place.
(m) investigate uneven flooring, could be wet joists, remove and replace with new, replace uneven floor with chip board and/or new wood. cover the whole lot in 6mm plywood to even out, tile on top with some nice black granite floor tiles. thats what i did and it looks hot. everyone that comes round loves them. will last for years too. (i installed £300 underfloor heating, piece of cake to install and ace in the morning on your cold feet! consists of a single wire electrcially wired and runs through 3 rooms)
(n) sit back, have a drink in the new pad and watch your friends (who have newly acquired “properties to renovate”) become envious at your advanced state of property development.

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