major wall problems

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mjk201

mjk201

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okay 3 years ago i removed the ugly wood paneling we had on the walls. it came with the house and i got tired of looking at it. so after i moved it we painted the walls 3 times in the past 2 years. so one day i noticed that the wall was looked pushed out a bit but i just thought it was the drywall so i never took it serious but know it's got me worried because it's popping up all over the room now. i got 3 kids that are this one room alot and god forbid these walls come down on them i'll post pics in this thread so you can see for yourself because it's hard for me to explain what's going on since i'm not that great of a handy man outside of cars. so any help you could give me would be really helpful. and if you can't help then thanks for you time for reading this and have a good day.

the one above the tv is really long almost goes from one side of the wall to the other.

and the one in the last pic is not sheet rock it's a board that is pushing its way foward. above the board is a tiled ceiling.

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Hello Michael:
When you took the paneling down, did you find a plastered wall? The pictures look like plaster with heavy wallpaper underlayment and paint on them.
If they are plastered an it is an older home (pre1950) the plaster breaks down over the years from moisture and sometimes turns loose in big chunks. About the only thing that could be done is to remove the plaster and replace it with drywall or other materials.
Glenn
 
MJK201:

I'm wondering what those vertical lines are on the walls other than wallpaper painted over as Glenn suggests.

Did that ugly wood panelling you removed when you first bought the house look brand new? If so, it may have been installed merely to hide the problems you may be finding now. What's crossing my mind is that perhaps the bottom plate of that wall is rotting, and as it gets progressively unable to support the weight of the wall, the surface of the wall is moving downward. I'm wondering if that tiled ceiling is hiding any possible gap opening up at the top of the wall.

Could it be that you're noticing the outward buckling of the wall much more since you got that white wall lamp beside your tv set. You see, that lamp is going to shine light at a sharp angle to your walls and make all the bumps and dips in it look like Mount Everest and the Grand Canyon, respectively. That is, it will exagerate the "unflatness" of your wall by making every bump and dip look much worse than they would look with a ceiling mounted light fixture, for example.

Also, the relatively glossy paint (semigloss) you're using on your walls isn't helping any. You see, our eyes only see defects on smooth surfaces because of the way those defects perturb the way light reflects of the surface at the defect. That is, you only see a ripple on a pond because light reflecting off the surface of the water looks different than light reflected off the surrounding flat surface of the water. So, to avoid seeing the ripple, you can use a flatter paint. Flatter paints have rough surfaces, so they scatter light in all directions, and so your eye doesn't see any difference between the way light reflects at the defect than the way it does from the surrounding wall. So, you don't see any problems.

I'm wondering if you're noticing more "bulges" in the wall since it was last painted, and whether the previous paint was a flatter gloss?
 
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I'm not sure it would be rot. Probably the only permanent fix would be to remove all the sheetrock or plaster and put up drywall. When he wall are open you can also inspect for rot or termite damage, add any electrical outlets you may want, insulate if its not, etc.

Good luck.
 
Yes - sorry if I confused. Sheetrock is a brand of drywall. Plaster is different and applied with different techniques depending on the vintage.
 
Yes - sorry if I confused.
Click to expand...

no, I was born confused. Your post didn't confuse me any more than I already was.
 
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How old is the house? Look on the back of the circuit breaker box door . There may be a date there.

I agree, plaster and wood lath. The lath ripples like that horizontally, with a vertical wallpaper seam.

That's the second joke Nestor posted that I read, each within a minute of each other! Since I joined. (feed, not water the attic critter, LOL) Be safe, G
 
glennjanie said:
Hello Michael:
When you took the paneling down, did you find a plastered wall? The pictures look like plaster with heavy wallpaper underlayment and paint on them.
If they are plastered an it is an older home (pre1950) the plaster breaks down over the years from moisture and sometimes turns loose in big chunks. About the only thing that could be done is to remove the plaster and replace it with drywall or other materials.
Glenn
Click to expand...

okay sorry for taking awhile getting beack to you guys. well all i know is the house is over 100 years old. when i pulled off the paneling it was sheetrock no wallpaper. but in certain section i have found wallpaper.
 
Nestor_Kelebay said:
MJK201:

I'm wondering what those vertical lines are on the walls other than wallpaper painted over as Glenn suggests.

Did that ugly wood panelling you removed when you first bought the house look brand new? If so, it may have been installed merely to hide the problems you may be finding now. What's crossing my mind is that perhaps the bottom plate of that wall is rotting, and as it gets progressively unable to support the weight of the wall, the surface of the wall is moving downward. I'm wondering if that tiled ceiling is hiding any possible gap opening up at the top of the wall.

Could it be that you're noticing the outward buckling of the wall much more since you got that white wall lamp beside your tv set. You see, that lamp is going to shine light at a sharp angle to your walls and make all the bumps and dips in it look like Mount Everest and the Grand Canyon, respectively. That is, it will exagerate the "unflatness" of your wall by making every bump and dip look much worse than they would look with a ceiling mounted light fixture, for example.

Also, the relatively glossy paint (semigloss) you're using on your walls isn't helping any. You see, our eyes only see defects on smooth surfaces because of the way those defects perturb the way light reflects of the surface at the defect. That is, you only see a ripple on a pond because light reflecting off the surface of the water looks different than light reflected off the surrounding flat surface of the water. So, to avoid seeing the ripple, you can use a flatter paint. Flatter paints have rough surfaces, so they scatter light in all directions, and so your eye doesn't see any difference between the way light reflects at the defect than the way it does from the surrounding wall. So, you don't see any problems.

I'm wondering if you're noticing more "bulges" in the wall since it was last painted, and whether the previous paint was a flatter gloss?
Click to expand...

we only used that kind of paint because that room is my kids play room and it used to be blue. i primed the wall the 1st time i painted it because it was just sheetrock. then i painted it only 3 times after that. when it was a darker color i never seen those lines before that's why it got me worried at what might be going on.
 
in the 1st pic those two long seemd going from the top to the bottom are wood. never even knew they were there when the wall was painted blue. and in the last pic the bulge up there is also a peice of wood also i checked yesterday. and the bulge coming foward above the tv is the sheetrock because you can feel inside the wall and feel were 1 peice ends and the other starts. thanks again for your help guys hope to get this taken care of before it becomes worse. at first i thought maybe it might be the foundation but i have that looked at evey year. plus non of my windows or doors stick and i have no cracks on the inside of my walls or the outside of house either.
 
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