We currently live in a cheap and run down apartment in an attempt to save money for future plans. Everything works fine but the wallpaper in the living room is stained and ugly. (The rest of the apartment is also papered in ugliness, but at least it’s clean.) So we’re thinking of painting over the wallpaper, both to make it look nicer and in an attempt to convince the landlord to keep the rent as it is (our neighbors had their rent raised recently at the end of their lease, and ours ends in December).
Also, the tub in the bathroom is stained and unattractive and no amount of scrubbing seems to help.
I’ve been digging around on the Internet for some advice. Most places say to use a compound to smoothen out the seams of the wallpaper and use an oil-based primer with oil-based paint. But for some reason most of what I find online (on Korean websites) is all water-based. Is it absolutely necessary to use oil-based?
Any general advice on painting over wallpaper and painting a tub would be much appreciated. Neither of us have ever tried DIY household improvement stuff before, by the way. I did once help my parents paint their living room, and the only lesson I learned from that is the color on the website won’t necessarily match the color on the wall in the end. (We thought it was a pure white but turned out to have a faint lime tinge.)
Don’t know about painting a tub.
But painting over wallpaper?
Well, Germans LOVE wallpaper, and some kinds of wallpaper are designed to be painted after applied.
Most of the people I know used water based paint - not so thick (so the wallpaper didn’t fall off) and absorbed into the wallpaper better.
I guess it depends on the type of wallpaper, and if it is in good condition.
My 2 cents.
I will let more experienced DIY’er tell ya more.
I don’t think doing nice things for the apt. will make 2 squats of difference to the landlord - they are all soulless reptiles {kidding, mostly}.
But if you are convinced otherwise and have never done any DIY projects, the first rule you need to know is Murphy’s law. The second rule is that whatever fix you come up with to remedy the first problem will create more problems of it’s own.
Really, I wouldn’t chance something major like either project without getting your bearings on smaller and more expendable projects first.
As for the tub, there are epoxy paints that would probably do the job, but I have never used them so I can’t help with any potential pit falls. Also, as I recall, they require thorough ventilation during both application and drying.
The living room area we are planning to paint over is pretty small (it’s hard to explain, but the front door opens directly into a kitchen space - that’s the area we want to paint, but it’s not a traditional “kitchen”). Most of one wall is taken up by the sink and cabinets and the oven and stove top, and the opposite walls has two doors leading to the bedroom and other room we use as our living room. So I do think it’s not too overwhelming.
What potential problems would be caused by painting over the wallpaper?
One potential problem is that you need to speak with the landlord first. If you do it with his approval, it’s an improvement; if you do it without his approval, he can count it as damage even if the end result is better than what you now have.
Painting over the wallpaper instead of scrapping it off first can lead to the problem of the wallpaper getting wavy if you wet it too much/do not leave enough time between coats. There should be no problem with using water-based paints, oil-based paints for home use are becoming harder and harder to find in many markets. Explain to the people at the paint store that you’re painting on paper so they can point you for the best preparation and application (I think you’re much better off using a roller than brushes in general, but on paper, even more so as it will spread the paint more evenly). Don’t skimp on masking tape, old bedclothes and newspaper to protect the floor and furniture.
Home Depot, Lowes, other similar places sell bathtub refinishing kits. Lots of prep needed, spray lingers in the air and coats everything not papered or plasticed off. Results have been consistently pretty good if all instructions are followed. ymmv
I don’t like to paint over paper. Removing it is best. But, if you must, visit a paint store, not a big box store with a paint department, and get a primer made for your specific needs.
Nava mentioned it, but it needs repeating. For both of these projects, go to a paint store. Not Wal-Mart, not Lowes, not Home Depot, not True Value…A paint store. A store that sells nothing but paint, and ask their advice. Also, given the odd job of painting a tub, I’d suggest you go to at least two store and see if their advice is similar before jumping in.
I live in Korea. We don’t have Wal-Mart or Lowes or Home Depot. We do have paint shops though.
We are definitely planning to ask the landlord before we do anything but I can’t really see why he would refuse. Unless he thinks we’d fuck it up really bad. . . .
We may leave the tub alone if it proves to be too much work.
Hmmm… Some older products that I used to use (just a couple of years ago) are apparently no longer available in the USA. Maybe Korea still has them, but be careful, there’s a reason things get taken off the market. I can’t find the refinish stuff I was thinking of in an online search, so maybe the tub idea should be put aside altogether. Also, it should be noted that these products are/were toxic. Respirators are needed, not just a simple dust mask.
I’ve seen tubs that were 're-glazed" by pros applying a coating. It looks better than it did before they started, but nobody would confuse it with a new tub. Think like a car with a real cheap paint job done by Bubba in his front yard. And those coatings do’t have good longevity. Once nicked, they’ll peel or flake. And recaoting a coating ends up looking really scabrous.
I’d also second Nava’s point about landlord’s permission, preferably in writing. It’d be easy for him/her to agree verbally to you “fixing up” the tub or living room and then claiming the results of your less-than-professional workmanship was damage, not a fix.
The tub in my apartment looks like it was painted. I have no idea what they used or who did it, but it is a complete and total mess. When I moved in, it looked okay. After a couple of years worth of showers and cleaning, it began to peel. Now, every time I clean my tub, I’m standing in paint chips for days. It looks far worse than the scratches and stains they were trying to cover. Abrasive cleaners completely destroy it, but even mild cleaners make a mess. You may not be able to scrub at all once you refinish it. According to NoClueBoy’s link, you can’t use abrasive cleaners even if your tub is professionally refinished.
Maybe you can do a better job than our maintenance team, but you’re definitely taking a risk and you’ll be limited in how you can clean it. I wouldn’t do it.
What is the condition of the wallpaper? Yes, it’s ugly, stained, whatever… but does it still stick to the wall? If it’s still firmly attached to the wall then you can paint over it. If it’s starting to de-adhere or peel then you MUST remove the lose stuff. To do that, you use steam. Here in the US we can get little machines with a water reservoir, a hose, and a fixture for directing steam towards the wall. Once the water heats up they’re pretty easy to use and most wallpaper comes off without too much problem. You will always get better results if you remove the wallpaper first, but if you must leave it on the wall…
Clean the old paper. Use a damp cloth with a mild cleaner. Let it dry. Lightly sand the surface. You don’t have to use an oil-based paint, but I do recommend a primer coat followed by a color coat. Maybe two color coats. It’s not going to look fantastic but you might get acceptable results as long as the paper underneath stays attached to the wall.
The tub:
I don’t recommend attempting to refinish the tub. Particularly if you aren’t an experienced do-it-yourself handyman.
Why not remove the old paper before you paint? Removing wall paper is not that difficult, but it can be time consuming. Your paint job will be 4000% better if you remove the wallpaper first.
As for the tub, maybe it just requires an extra large dose of elbow grease? (I’m totally not trying to insinuate that it’s not clean now, BTW - mine’s discolored as well, but it is clean. That said, I need to apply some of my own advice here too.)
There’s some tips in thisthread - it might be worth checking out to see if there’s any combination of cleaners that’ll help with the discoloration.
Some wallpaper strips easily, some doesn’t. Is it peeling at all? We ended up painting over wallpaper in a 1950’s house we used to have. When I tried to remove the wallpaper, it had bonded to the drywall and it just ripped off the paper layer of the drywall, so we painted over it (regular latex paint) with no problems and no peeling.
However, are your walls even drywall in Korea? Because in Japan, ours were this odd hardboard stuff, and the wallpaper (god, what is it with wallpaper in Asia? Even our ceilings were papered) was peeling off pretty readily on a building that was only about 5 years old. I could have stripped the whole apartment in a weekend if the landlord had let me, which he wouldn’t.
Skip the tub. I’ve never heard of anyone that was happy with the results of a refinished tub, even ones that were professionally done.
IME, “strippable” wallpaper is designed so the outer layer can be fairly easily peeled off from the base, which remains glued to the wall.
This gives you a sort of velour-like paper surface that’s ready to accept a new layer of wallpaper adhesive. It’s nothing you’d want to paint as a finish coat - at best, you could paint the peach-fuzz surface with a sealing primer such as BIN or Kilz, let it dry, sand it smooth, prime again and hope one recursion of sealing, sanding and sealing leaves an acceptably smooth surface. But, it probably won’t. You must use a non-water-based sealer here - anything water-based will only soak through the paper to loosen the adhesive and give you a wall covered in blisters and curling edges. Heartbreak.
Otherwise, there’s a gizmo called a “paper tiger” that resembles one of those herb chopper gadgets sold on late-night TV. You scribble this thing all over the wallpaper where it didn’t graciously separate when you tried to strip it, and it perforates the paper so wallpaper remover can be sprayed on, left to soak a bit, then if you’re lucky, the whole gloppy mess can be scraped off, leaving a minimally-scarred wall.
Did I mention that removing wallpaper is unpleasant, messy and definitely not guaranteed to go well? There’s always paneling…
We do have paint shops though.