Ugly wall paper.
Removed ugly wall paper, but it doesn’t go nicely. Ends up tearing off parts of the drywall paper and leaves parts of the wall looking rough.
So we use TSP to clean the walls. Do some sanding, and then apply skim coat. You know, the blue contain of the pre-made stuff sold at Home Depot.
After this is applied, then some sanding to make it look smooth. Although I have noticed it doesn’t look perfect at this point, my wife seems to think to proceed with painting is going to make it OK.
She paints, one coat and a second, and after it dries it looks terrible. The paint is a paint and primer in one deal. So she repeats the process with skim coating again, and often times it doesn’t really improve that much.
When we have hired a professional, they don’t seem to have this problem and I don’t know what they are doing differently. My guess is, that they are able to prepare the surface better and can tell if it’s not going to look good before doing primer and paint, and do something so the finished product looks nice. We have painted walls that look fine, but the walls were already painted walls in excellent shape to begin with.
So what are we doing wrong? Is the key to use a separate primer, then two top coats? Is there something wrong about the skim coat?
And what about skim coat? Is it better to put way too much on, and then sanding it down so it looks fine and smooth without any artifacts in it? Or should there be used as little as possible of the skim coat? Thanks!