Any repair, major or cosmetic , begins with preparation. And the more quality the preparation - the better the result is the repair. After all, only the correct use of techniques and the use of modern materials can guarantee the reliability, beauty and durability of decoration. Let's consider in this regard the correct preparation of the walls for wallpapering.
It should be noted that before you prepare the walls, you need to know what exactly they should be prepared for. After all, there are both general rules and certain differences in the process, caused by special requirements and characteristics of the finish coatings.
General rules for preparing walls
This includes the following stages:
1. Getting rid of old coating, dust and surface contaminants .
Do it comfortably with a construction spatula. If the wall keeps traces of several layers of wallpaper, it is not superfluous to soak in warm soapy water. The main condition - on the surface should not remain paper shreds, otherwise they will become weak places of further coverage.
2. Filling cracks .
Torn old wallpaper - carefully examine the clean wall. If you find at least a hint of a crack, pick it with a spatula. Further, with the help of special building mixes and adhesives, all cracks should be covered and strengthened. If you skip this step or perform it insufficiently carefully, your plaster will fall off along with the top coat.
3. Primary priming .
It is necessary to prepare the wall for further processing. Increases adhesion and protects against fungus.
4. Plastering of walls .
This stage allows you to level out the small irregularities that are inherent in the walls in our latitudes, as well as fill the smallest cavities and cracks. It should be noted that at this stage, the general rules end, and the features dictated by the finish coat play a role.
Features of preparing walls for wallpapering
So, you have reached the fourth stage - applying plaster. It is already important to know exactly what kind of walls you want to see as a result. The thinner the final coating, the thicker and more carefully the layer of plaster should be applied. For example, the preparation of walls for wallpaper under painting will take many times less time than a similar process for paper wallpapers. Due to the fact that wallpaper for painting, as a rule, have their own structure and volume. Increased by layers of paint, they allow you to visually smooth out the unevenness of the walls. At the same time, simple paper wallpaper, especially monochrome, underlines any flaws, and therefore require an ideally stucco surface.
If you draw a similar analogy inside a family of wallpaper, then for the same reason, preparing walls for wallpaper vinyl requires more plastering than preparing walls for non-woven wallpaper. As you may have guessed, non-woven wallpaper, as a rule, is more structured and more embossed than smooth vinyl, and therefore able to "hide" small flaws in the walls.
Thus, with plaster we sorted out, but on this the preparation of the walls was not completed. It's time to the last technical stage - re-priming. The importance of this process is difficult to overestimate: primer increases the adhesion of materials, strengthens plaster, prevents the appearance of fungus.
Basically, under any wallpaper, it is customary to use acrylic primers. They do not have a sharp odor, quickly dry and are suitable for most walls. But there are also some nuances. So, the preparation of plastered walls for ordinary wallpaper, the preparation of ordinary walls for liquid wallpaper and the preparation of gypsum cardboard walls for wallpaper will be slightly different. And these differences consist in the choice of a specific type of primer: ordinary wallpaper is suitable for any acrylic, liquid - necessarily waterproof, and plasterboard can be primed very economically, paying attention only to seams and places requiring additional strength.
Thus, the correct preparation of the walls during the repair requires time and effort, but, at the same time, it serves as a guarantee of beauty and durability of your decorating.