# Home decoration: the paint from hell

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-decoration-the-paint-from-hell/240557>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 17, 2004, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-decoration-the-paint-from-hell/240557 "2004-04-17T20:15:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\
**Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-decoration-the-paint-from-hell/240557/1 "2004-04-17T20:15:47Z")

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I’m redecorating my bathroom. Over the Easter weekend I removed the semi-perished vinyl wallpaper from hell and been left with a painted subsurface with large patches going through to the plasterboard and wood behind. It didn’t sand well and is quite thick in places so I got out the heat gun. This just resulted in the fire alarm going off.

So I tidied up and left it until today when I prepared the bathroom for Round Three: paintstripper.

I speak to the assistants at B&Q and buy a suitable paintstripper. Lots of protective newspaper held in place with masking tape, covered by a plastic dustsheet. So I apply the paintstripper. Nada. Almost no effect whatsoever on what I want to remove - but it definitely works on the paint on wooden surround.

What is this stuff? How do I easily remove it? It will sand, but that will take me a LONG time. Even with an electric sander.

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**Author:** ![EvilGhandi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@EvilGhandi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilGhandi)\
**Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-decoration-the-paint-from-hell/240557/2 "2004-04-17T20:30:27Z")

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To heck with all that work. Pretty much the standard practice where the walls are damaged by wall paper removal is to “skin” the wall with joint compound.

Get yourself a wide taping knife and a 5 gallon bucket of taping mud. Lay a thin coat over the entire wall, it takes practice but it isn’t really all that hard.

You may also want to invest in a pole sander because your first attempt at skinning a wall isn’t likely to produce a glassy smoth surface. Just lay it on as smoothly as you can, then sand it nice and smooth. go back and repair any bad spots.

Total time, a few hours skinning an hour or so sanding. Dont forget to cover everything or you clean up time will be days. Drywall dust gets into everything