If you’re a hack, sure. Hacks do terrible things to homes all day long. Only hacks paint over wallpaper.

You don’t want to paint over it because it’s a great wallpaper job. Can you explain that, please?

I’d love to take a peak inside that China cabinet of yours, btw; it looks like it’s filled with some great pieces (perhaps some Royal Crown Derby?)

Ha, yes many OLD family pieces, Sammy and I HATE the red. We acquired it when we purchased the house 4 years ago. My old dining room was also red.

Sophie, I am not a hack, I've done MANY a home restoration with my own hands and am asking for advise not criticism.

You don't want to rip out a good wallpaper job, but you are okay painting over it? If you don't like it, take it off and prep the walls properly for paint.

Take the time, do it right, and remove the wallpaper. Its not that difficult, and when you do paint, you will have a smoother nicer paint job that wont show wallpaper seam lines. Yes, it can be done, but, no, it shouldnt be done, and it never looks as good. Once you do paint it, then you have made the removal process much harder to do. You have a beautiful home, and removing the wallpaper and getting a nice smooth paint job, can onlly make it even nicer.

I've lived with painted-over wallpaper and it's not ideal because you can always see the seams. I confess that I myself once painted over some ugly wallpaper and the dark color bled through the paint in splotches. What a mess!

Off subject, but what is your trim color? It looks very mellow...not a stark white.

Coming from a paint and wallpaper contractor for most of his life (my dad...r.i.p.) I'm 55 and can still hear him explaining in our family business the reasons why you never want to paint over wallpaper. Certainly, I have renovated the 3 homes I have owned and have never dared to do it so my answer is Please don't... ; )

In one of my rental houses, a previous tenant painted over (admittedly ugly) wallpaper without my permission. The paint peels off in sheets. Maybe proper prep would have helped the paint adhere, but to me the lesson is, "don't paint over wallpaper."

PS - IMO, your wallpaper is gorgeous. :)

In the long run, it's probably going to be cheaper (and take less time) to strip the paper, clean and seal the walls with GARDZ, then finish with two coats of paint vs. a series of band-aids and processes to paint over the paper. If you do it right, you know what the result is going to be.

If you try to cut corners and paint over the wall paper, after all the time and money, you could end up with less than stellar results -- no way to know what you're gonna get until it's done.

pcweary, Don't know the color was already here when we moved. It is more yellowish white with some antiquing.

Can i prime and paper over paper?

Again,only a hack does a hack job. You insist that you aren’t a hack, but your words betray you.

Hi kfb55,

Sophie Wheeler is over the top - don't listen to her.

However, Lori A. Sawaya got it right.

The answer is that you can paint over it. In fact they make paper for smoothing out walls.
You need to prime it properly and mud/sand the seams. You also need to fix any bubbles, loose paper, etc.

That said, you won't know the quality of the job until you are all done. And there is a good chance it won't look great unless you do a fair amount of prep work.

My advice is to strip the paper, mop the walls to remove residual glue, then touch up with mud anywhere there are nicks from removing the paper. Seal with a stain sealing primer and then paint.

Can i prime and paper over paper?

Paint and primer is / can act like a solvent. If it soaks thru the paper and gets to the old adhesive, it's anybody's guess what will happen.

Removing it isn't always as bad as it sounds, as PG mentioned if it was installed properly, no big deal.

Use Safe and Simple. Apply according to directions on the bottle. Cover it with plastic wrap so it doesn't dry out. Let it sit for 15 to 20 minutes, then remove paper, clean up the walls by washing them down with more Safe and Simple and a Dobie scrubber taking care to get all traces of adhesive. Prep, patch, seal with GARDZ so you don't have to worry about any adhesive you may have missed and put two coats of paint in whatever color you want. https://safeandsimple.mysimplestore.com/products/603-wallpaper-removal-solutiion-16-ounces

Honestly, the Plan Bs to avoid removing the paper really can end up being more work and costing more money - take longer over all.

Sophie may be “over the top” to some but she is always right. Bad bad idea. Our last home had wallpaper painted over and it looked terrible. It was awful to remove once painted. We ended up removing the whole wall instead, no joke.

I'm in the "don't do it" category. FWIW, I bought an inexpensive wagner wallpaper steamer and it made removing the old paper pretty easy. If it's a "great wallpaper job" then they likely used a quality wallpaper. Score it with a scoring tool, apply some FAST wallpaper remover and then use a steamer to reactivate the paste and strip. It should practically fall off the walls. The end result will look so much better than just painting over it. Lastly, with that really dark color it may be more effort to cover it than to remove it as well.

Sophie is wrong quite often actually.

The bottom line, strip and start over, or love with the red.. UGH

I painted over wallpaper once in a house where the wallpaper was not prepped properly and dynamite would not take it off. It was either paint over it or replace the sheetrock. I used primer first and the paint looked ok, BUT, if you looked close you could see faint lines. It was a very small powder room. I don't think I would do it in a dining room. Good luck with whatever you decide.

And Sophie makes me laugh. Whether she is right or wrong I thinks she is a hoot.

If I’d read the comments here first! I wouldn’t have chanced it...and maybe we were very lucky.

We painted over wallpaper in a guest bathroom, not a particularly small one, well over 15 years ago. We had a pro do the work and got a written guarantee that he would an excellent job or he’d start from scratch, strip the paper, and paint the wall. He had a good reputation and we’d seen his work so we took a leap of faith.

It’s been fine ever since. Not a seam showing and no sign of the old wallpaper. However, the wallpaper was not only in excellent condition but had no bumps or irregularities. If it wasn’t a gloomy and dark print, we might have left it alone.

As for removing it, odds were high that there were several layers of wallpaper below the top one, a nightmare to remove. Our master bathroom had 5 previous layers, including one pasted under the door frame. We did remove it all and even a pro couldn’t avoid damaging some of the drywall. It was costly, too.

You can try and may have good luck but the paint also might soak into the wallpaper and release the glue. It could be terrible. I personally would never paint over wallpaper. I like wallpaper and only once had problems removing it. But you have to finish removing it once you start even if it's a pain.

I painted over wallpaper once, many years ago before I knew better...bad mistake. Then I decided that it needed to come off the walls and the removal was substantially harder due to the fact that the paint did a good job of sealing the paper so that moisture from the steamer had a much harder time getting through. I have since dealt with many rooms with wallpaper, and never considered not stripping them back to the sheetrock and patching and priming properly. I don't care what anyone says: even if the wallpapering job is very good, it's obvious to me when someone painted over the wallpaper and I think it looks like crap. But it's your house....until you sell it and get picky buyers, like me.

There's a special place in hell for people who paint over wallpaper / brick.

I would suggest removing the wall paper. From my experience, it doesn't look right when painted over.

It is true that there are circumstances when it's better to paint over the paper because the ultimate diagnosis is the room will have to be resheetrocked. Sometimes that leaves you with the choice of replacing the walls or painting over paper.

A long time ago I specified color for Four Square in Ohio built in 1904(ish). They decided to strip the paper in the dining room. It wasn't too bad until they got to the wall that wasn't an insulated interior wall; on the other side was a garage that was added on (when we don't know).

So the adhesive on that wall had been exposed to extreme heat and cold. Unlike the other three insulated, interior walls. The result was some crazy chemistry and the paper was fused to the drywall -- it wasn't coming off without taking several layers of the wall with it.

The only way around it was to replace the drywall. Then we had to do the other 3 walls because the texture, surface of that one wall juxtaposed to the 3 other old walls looked ridiculous.

So, yeah, totally understand the trials and tribs of dealing with old wallpaper! It can be a can of worms.

Four Square in Ohio built in 1904(ish).... the paper was fused to the drywall ...

Drywall in a 1904 house? That can't be original, can it? The U.S. Gypsum (USG) company invented drywall in 1916. It didn't really catch on until the post-war building-boom. For a long time, drywall was considered a lower quality material than real plaster. That's not wrong.

No. Not original. Someone added on a garage. No idea when the addition was done.

I would paint over it for a short term fix - hoping it would look good. Assuming you do it yourself.

Knowing that it’s a short term fix - and knowing you would have to take it off eventually and properly prep the walls most likely by a professional.

...and knowing that painting over it may make future removal a lot harder...

" strip the paper, clean and seal the walls with GARDZ, then finish with two coats of paint"

Exactly what I did. And definitely worth the effort. No way would I ever advise anyone to paint OVER wallpaper!!

The two choices are either keep the wallpaper as it is or strip it and re-paint the walls.

Remove the wall paper please. If it was done by a pro as you seem to indicate, then sizing was put on the walls and the paper should readily come off...you will be so proud of yourself for removing it and making a lovely room look smashing! Post pics please and we will encourage you on......be glad it is only half a wall.

Its easy tp o remove now, it will be much harder after you paint it. Why would you possibly leave it? What possible advantage is there to having wallpaper under your paint?

(Yes, I know about lincrusta, which is meant to be painted, and the use of papers or fiberglass to temporarily stabilize failing plaster. It doesn't seem that that is what we are talking about here.)

I've removed wallpaper from ancient (i.e. Victorian) walls, and while it was very difficult to remove old wallpaper (and I am talking about multiple layers of paper), the end result was definitely worth it. Dark wallpaper absolutely should be removed before painting.

I have no qualms about painting over brick, however, as I hate exposed red brick and would never want to have to live with that - I find it way too depressing. I associate red brick with old, shut-down factories that are in decay. I do like the color of your wallpaper, however, but I can see how you would get tired of it.

Remove the paper first. It’s time consuming but will be well worth the effort.