mobilehomerepair.com

I need some SERIOUS help!

When we bought our house, the people before us had painted it HORRIBLY (I'm talking REALLY REALLY bad!!) and I'm DESPERATE to figure out something!

I want to remove the batten strips and fill them in, there lies the problem. The walls are textured... and painted.. (did I mention horribly??)

I was thinking of using the paintable wall paper, but, that's a bit pricey! My other idea was to skim coat, but I don't know if that will work because of the paint!!

PLEASE help me!

First of all what type of texture are we talking about? If it's textured paintable wall paper won't work at all. Wall paper needs a smooth flat surface to stuck to. Some pictures would really help show exactly what your dealing with.

Skim coat is about your only option. Without seeing it I would say knock down the high spots. Then mix up some drywall mud pretty soupy and use a paint roller to put it on the walls. Then while still wet use a 12" drywall knife to smooth everything out. It may take two coats depending on how bad the texture is. If the texture is really high you may need to use a drywall knife to put a coat of mud on to fill in the deeper holes before skim coating. Then prime and paint.

If you can upload some pictures to photobucket or any other photo hosting site and then link to them we can see what you have and give some better advice.

Well, the wall board itself is textured, so, when they painted, it looks like there is bad "swipe" marks in the paint. I'm uploading the pictures to photobucket right now.

Here is one of the unpainted walls.

So the paneling itself came like that or someone put that texture on with a notched trowel? Is that a paneling or drywall?

I don't think them painting the walls will affect anything. I think from looking at the picture I would try to "fill in" the trowel notches with joint compound and then skim coat everything. If you want to remove the battens your best bet is to remove them first. Then fill in the notches with joint compound. Then tape and mud the seams. Then skim coat everything.

Do a internet search under "heavy duty paper liner"

This is one company providing the product.

http://www.wallliner.com/

Yes, the wallboard itself is covered in a paper that is textured. I can't take it off because it's part of the wall.

I will definitely look for the wall liner.

Which would be a less expensive way to do it? I don't want it to look cheap... but I don't want to put a huge dent in my wallet either. The entire house is done with this wall board, some of it has been painted, some has not, but, I want to paint EVERYTHING!

Skimming the wall is a huge job, not for the amature seeking a quality job, and probably not worth the effort.
If you do decide to skim coat get a quote from a profesional before you try it yourself. It is fine to try and do it yourself but the results may be worse than what you already have.

What about mudding the whole wall? Would that work or would it just be a giant waste of time?

Okay.. so I read a little more about the wall liner stuff..

What would I prime the walls with? The ones that HAVEN'T been painted?

http://www.wallliner.com/wallpreparation.html

It depends on the product you buy. As the sales staff where you buy the product.