The wall is a mess after stripping wallpaper — what do I do now?

Stripping wallpaper reveals the wall's real condition, and it also damages it. Steam softens plaster, scrapers dig in, and where the paper was hung directly onto unpainted plasterboard, the board's paper face comes off with it. The order of operations matters more than the products, because each stage depends on the one before it.

What you'll need

• Bucket, sponge and warm water
• Sugar soap or a size remover
• Filling knife and filler
• Sanding block and abrasive paper
• A sealer or thinned PVA for torn board paper
• Primer
• Lining paper (optional)

Step by step

1. Get every trace of old paste off before anything else.Warm water and a sponge, or a proprietary size remover, then a clean water rinse. Old paste is invisible when dry and it stops filler, paint and new paper from bonding. Run a hand over the dry wall — any tackiness or slick patches mean it is still there.
2. Let the wall dry fully and then look at it in raking light.A torch held flat against the wall shows every gouge, ridge and torn area. Mark them in pencil, because half of them disappear in normal light and reappear after painting.
3. Identify torn plasterboard paper.Fuzzy brown or grey patches where the white paper face has come away. This is the one that catches people out: filler and paint applied over exposed gypsum core soak in, the surface bubbles, and it looks worse than it did.
4. Seal any exposed board core before filling it.A proprietary drywall sealer, a stabilising primer or a suitably thinned bonding agent, applied to the fuzzy areas and allowed to dry. This binds the loose fibres and stops the filler and paint soaking into raw gypsum.
5. Fill gouges and dents proud, in thin coats.Filler shrinks, so leave it slightly high and sand back rather than trying to finish level. Deep damage gets built up in layers rather than filled in one go.
6. Sand beyond the edges of every repair.Sanding only the filler leaves a hard edge that shows under paint. Take the abrasive well out onto the surrounding wall so the transition is gradual.
7. Deal with any lining paper backing left behind.Where the top paper has come off and a lining paper remains firmly stuck and intact, it can be painted or papered over. Where it is lifting anywhere, it all has to come off — a partially adhered layer under new paint blisters.
8. Prime the repairs, and consider priming the whole wall.Filler is far more absorbent than the wall. Without priming, every repair shows as a dull patch through the topcoat. Where the wall's absorbency varies wildly, a full coat of primer or a thinned first coat evens it out.
9. Judge the wall honestly before painting.Stand back in daylight and with a lamp held at an angle. If the surface is now sound and reasonably flat, paint it. If it is covered in small repairs and shallow damage, lining paper or a skim will look far better than paint over patchwork.
10. Choose lining paper or a skim if it needs it.Heavy lining paper hung horizontally hides a great deal for very little money. A skim coat gives a new surface for more money and more mess. Both are better outcomes than painting a wall you already know is not right.

Tips

• Do the washing down thoroughly and change the water often. Wiping paste around with a dirty sponge spreads a thin film everywhere, which is worse than leaving it in patches.
• If the plaster underneath turns out to be sound and flat, a stripped wall is the ideal moment to paint — no better preparation exists than a clean, bare, primed surface.
• Where a wall has been papered for decades, expect to find previous repairs, old cable chases and a colour change where a fireplace or a picture rail used to be. None of it matters once it is primed.

If it doesn't work

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