Wallpaper and Wallcoverings - covering woodchip wallpaper

My entire house was papered with woodchip in the 80s and has been re-emulsioned several times since. It is very well put on and actually looks quite nice but it is so out of date and I long for plain untextured walls. I cannot face stripping the walls of 6 rooms plus hall and stairs etc. Does anyone know any way of covering woodchip - perhaps a skim of plaster? - to produce a smooth (or at least smoother) finish? : :wall:

Either a skimcoat of plaster or joint compound, or hang liner paper over the woodchip, and paint that.

:confused: woodchip wallpaper??? :confused:

i've never heard of that or seen it. is it really chips of wood adhered to a paper backing? sort of like grasscloth but wood chips? how small are the little pieces of wood? is it wood colored/stained or what? does it feel as rough as what i'm imagining? does it collect dust?

thanks.

Hi Annette. I think it must be an English thing! It is tiny, tiny chips of wood encased in the paper. On the wall it looks like an artex surface which I don't mind on the ceiling but my entire house looks like that. I think I will try what the other correspondent advised - a skim of plaster and paint that. Thank you both for your help.

where are you located?

and what's "artex"??

Obviously artex is an English thing too! It is the textured plaster you put on the ceiling to provide a sort of ripple finish. Do you not do that? I live in the north east of England in North Yorkshire - the most beautiful county in Britain. We have a fabulous coastline, immense moorland, historic cities/cathedrals and pretty dales. Its a pity that most American tourists stick to London and the south - they miss such a lot.

Mary

so, can you paint the woodchip wallpaper & have it just look like the artex texture?

Yes we can and that's what we have been doing since we moved into this house. However, artex and woodchip are really unfashionable now; this is not my choice of wallcovering and I really would prefer plain flat walls. We will try the suggestion made by prowallguy and hope it works. Thanks for your help.

well, good luck with your project & thanks for the info! it's so interesting to learn about the different things we have in our different countries!

I also looked at this forum for advice on removing painted over woodchip wallpaper. I found it hysterical reading about the confusion from Americans who have not had this product! How lucky you are! UK 80's decorators have a lot to answer for! Maybe there could be a facility for posting an explanatory photo on the site!!

Anyway I bought an Earlex wallpaper remover from Argos which has been brilliant at removing the twice painted woodchip paper and also another layer of paper underneath. So Mary maybe you could give that a go. Not so sure what I'm going to do about the ceiling as most of the woodchip's come off but I can't paper ceilings and think the edges are a bit too dodgy for painting.

Lesley (London, UK)