Painting old sheet rock/ugh!!

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house92

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I live in an old farm style house. A few rooms have sheet rock and has been painted over the years. I painted some rooms and it looks great.

A bedroom had paneling up. It was the press-board type that has warped over time and I wanted a change. I took it off(huge mess). Underneath was sheet rock with paper. The paper came off easily. Under that was something that looked like paper, but it seemed stuck tight to the sheet rock. It almost looked like it was part of the sheet rock.

I start to paint, and it bubbles in places and doesn't look so good. I am so sick of this project, I'm painting and it will just look like it looks. Is there anything I could have done here? Anything easy that I overlooked?
 
House, when you say the paper came off easily and there looked like paper under the wall paper, did you remove the backing from the wall paper? When ever I've stripped wall paper the backing doesn't come off usually and I've had to take a spray bottle of warm water, mist the wall and scrape it with a wall scrapper to get down to the wall board. If the wall board was never painted or had sizing applied before wallpapering, it can be a mess getting all the paper and glue residue off.
 
Oldog makes a good point, and if he is right, it will need to be scraped. Now you have to worry about lead paint before you scrape.
 
What you could try in the bubbled places is to slice around the bubble with a utility knife, and then coat over the top with some skimmed off coats of all purpose drywall compound. Use a wide taping knife and keep the coats thin. After each coat dries, scrape off any bumps or ridges with the edge of your taping knife before recoating. Feather out the edges, lightly sand, and when all done prime and paint.

If your bubbling is excessive and your seams and corners are all messed up, then the only fix is to tear all the drywall off and reinstall, but that turns into a big job.
 
Last edited:
house92 said:
Underneath was sheet rock with paper. The paper came off easily. Under that was something that looked like paper, but it seemed stuck tight to the sheet rock. It almost looked like it was part of the sheet rock.
Click to expand...

I think you may have encountered a paper backed vinyl. The vinyl comes off easily enough leaving the paper backing pasted to the wall. Since you have already applied paint your best course of action would be to follow Drywallinfo's advice with one minor addition. Where you cut away the bubbles, apply two coats of Zinnsers Guardz, letting each coat dry before the next step. It will stabilize the surface so that the wet drywall compound won't cause yet more bubbling. After the compound dries, sand out, prime and paint.
 
If the bubbling persists, might be easier to go over the walls with 1/4" drywall, glue and screw, tape and finish. Had almost the same situation in an old 1840's farmhouse I did a lot of work on. Pulled off paneling and had old plaster and lathe underneath that had a lot of cracks, too many to patch. Drywalled over and finished. Actually quicker and nicer looking walls when done.
Mike Hawkins:)
 
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