To ensure that the wallpaper does not peel off the walls and retains a presentable appearance for a long time, it is necessary to perform preparatory work. Proper removal of previous coatings, treatment with antiseptics and primers, application of several layers of putty - all this increases the strength of the surface, as well as adhesion to paper webs. It is necessary to follow the advice and recommendations of the masters exactly, otherwise in a couple of months everything will have to be redone.

Why is wall treatment done?

Ideally smooth surfaces in the apartment can be found extremely rarely. Even in the new building there are some defects, while the bases on which the canvases were pasted before are a rather sad sight. When changing the decorative layer, small pieces of concrete break off. It is imperative to process the walls before wallpapering, otherwise such defective areas will later cause bubbles and peel off the coating on a paper, non-woven or vinyl base.

Even if the apartment is new and the owners are completely satisfied with the walls, processing may be required due to the high humidity index. This applies to areas such as toilets, kitchens and bathrooms. Increased moisture levels in rooms encourage the emergence and spread of entire colonies of harmful microorganisms, such as mold and fungus. The presence of these pests adversely affects the appearance of the paintings, in addition, they pose a threat to human health.

Having correctly processed the concrete bases, following the recommendations and instructions of experienced craftsmen, the owner of the apartment will receive smooth and even walls. Thanks to this, the pasting process itself will be greatly simplified, and the wallpaper will last much longer. It will also save money, since much less glue is applied to the prepared surfaces.

Multi-stage work should contribute to the achievement of such properties of the concrete layer as:

High level of strength - this characteristic affects the durability of decorative coatings. Otherwise, over time, it becomes necessary to carry out additional restoration work, which takes a lot of effort and money.
Substrate Cleanliness - Vinyl, non-woven, and paper backed sheets can only be applied to clean substrates, so any previous coats must be removed.
Smoothness and evenness - some mistakenly believe that pasting walls with wallpaper allows you to hide bumps and defects. But you can hide them only with the help of special solutions - plaster and putty.
High adhesion - this indicator is achieved by applying a primer. The mixture is necessary to remove numerous small pores, which contributes to a better fixation of the canvases.

Properly executed treatment of concrete walls provides a strong and reliable base for decoration, which is not difficult to stick, and which will look great for a long time.

Removing old wallpaper is the most difficult and longest step.

Preparation for processing walls before wallpapering at the initial stage includes the dismantling of the previous decorative layer, if any. The process is complicated because the old coatings are separated with great difficulty. According to the advice of experts, the base can be wetted with water and left for a while. After that, it remains to carefully pry the paper at the junction and tear off strip after strip. A small construction spatula is ideal for work, which will greatly simplify the removal of the layer.

If there are residues of previous coatings on the surfaces, including whitewash, paint, old newspapers, then they must also be carefully removed. Again, a spatula is required, but they must act very carefully so as not to damage the base itself. The more scratches and chips a metal scraper leaves, the more it will have to putty and primer in the future.

Mold and fungus colonies found under the old decor deserve special attention. It is imperative to get rid of them by treating them with additional solutions. Professional fungicides or other similar chemicals are best suited. Even if there are places of rust and water drips, they are also recommended to be carefully treated with the indicated compositions.

The maximum effect of the action of antiseptics will be if the composition is applied in several layers. This allows you to completely destroy pests and prevent the likelihood of their reappearance.

In order to save money, you can independently prepare a mixture that copes well with microorganisms. This will require 200 grams of lime mortar and 1 liter of clean water. After thoroughly stirring the resulting liquid to a homogeneous consistency, it is applied to the infected areas. To increase the effect, it is recommended to add lime even to the glue with which the walls will be impregnated.

Leveling walls and correcting imperfections with plaster

It is not worth applying a decorative coating on a defective surface with a large number of scratches and cracks. The slightest cracks and chips need to be repaired, although this takes extra time. For these purposes, the walls will first need to be plastered and then puttied.

Essentially, both operations are similar. But each of them has certain differences:

1. Plaster - this composition is applied in cases where significant defects need to be repaired. These are various cement-containing substances, which include strengthening additives.
2. Puttying is carried out in order to give the maximum level of smoothness. The solution is made on the basis of gypsum. If plastering is not always performed, especially for new apartments, where the walls are more or less free of defects, then it is impossible to do without putty.

Plastering is an optional step, but highly desirable . The product is packaged in paper bags weighing approximately 25 kg. The packaging contains all the information necessary for diluting and mixing the solution. After preparing the mixture, you can get to work. This will require two spatulas - the main wide tool that they directly work with, and an overlay, through which the solution is applied to the main spatula.

Chips and other defects are repaired with neat smooth movements from top to bottom. If there are any significant bulges that interfere with the work, they can be removed with a perforator or an ordinary hammer.

Much more difficult is the plastering of littered walls, when the error along the vertical plane between the top and bottom reaches several centimeters. In this case, it will take a lot of time, effort and, of course, a solution.

Wall processing in this case includes plumb lines, beacons and a level. The first beacon is installed on the most even surface area, the next one must be placed in the place of the greatest deviation. By stretching the thread between two beacons, you can make several additional marks in the form of beacons along the resulting line. Using the building level, all marks must be placed in the same plane.

The plaster is applied in 1 layer, but if cracks or potholes are noticeable after drying, it is recommended to perform the entire procedure at least once more until all defects are eliminated.

Finishing - puttying and priming

Before wallpapering the walls, it remains only to putty and primer. Modern gypsum-based mixtures boast excellent adhesive properties, which only increases the effect of the primer. The application of putty contributes to the creation of a smooth and even surface of a white solid color. If you glue the canvases on such a base, then the concrete will not shine through even on light and white decorative coatings.

The instructions for working with putty are as follows:

All proportions, as in the case of plaster, are indicated on the packaging with the product. After adding the right amount of dry matter and water, mixing is carried out in a special container. To speed up the process, it is better to use a construction mixer.
The solution dries very quickly, so you should not prepare too much mixture, otherwise it will become unusable.
Putty is applied with a wide spatula in a circular motion on the wall. The size of one layer should not exceed 4 mm.
To increase the effect of the essence, it is recommended to apply several layers, but only after the previous ones have completely dried.
The greatest difficulty is the finishing layer, since it must be done perfectly so that there are no scratches and other marks from the spatula.
After drying, it remains only to carefully walk with fine-grained sandpaper to get rid of the smallest protrusions and potholes.

The final step is priming the treated surface. This procedure is always performed before applying wallpaper or painting, and on any basis - gypsum surface, drywall, concrete. Priming mixtures create the thinnest film that holds small particles together. Due to this property, the level of adhesion of the coating increases and it becomes possible to prevent cracking of the putty layer of concrete.

The range of soil is quite large, the most popular is the deep penetration acrylic preparation. Such compositions are applied to the walls in several layers using an ordinary brush or roller with a pile of no more than 1 cm. Having processed the concrete surface in this way, the owner of the apartment will ensure the durability, reliability, strength and quality of the glued wallpaper.

Wallpapering, which seems to be a simple and unpretentious task, in fact turns out to be a rather complicated process that requires careful preparation. Wall treatment before wallpapering is an obligatory stage of finishing work, providing the canvas with reliable adhesion to the walls and protection against possible cracking.

According to the assurances of experienced plasterers, perfectly even walls do not exist in nature. During the manufacture, installation or change of decor, pieces inevitably break off from the walls, and the recesses formed at the site of the chips must be repaired before applying new finishing materials.

Humidity is another factor to consider when carrying out repairs. High humidity in the room can provoke the appearance of mold fungi, which are dangerous for people in the room. The presence of mold requires additional processing of the walls before decorating with wallpaper.

Properly carried out wall processing allows you to get a perfectly flat surface, which will greatly facilitate the process of wallpapering, regardless of their brand, and also significantly extend their service life. In addition, when finishing prepared surfaces, much less glue and paint are consumed.

What are the walls treated with?

Wall processing technology directly depends on the existing problems. Whole piers with shallow cracks are enough to cover with a primer and putty. Sometimes, to improve adhesion between the wall and the wallpaper, a bleach solution is used, which is applied before priming as a disinfectant. Such a solution is prepared from 1 liter of water and 200 g of lime. All ingredients are thoroughly mixed until lime is completely dissolved.

The preparation of mold-affected walls includes several stages:

Elimination of the causes that caused the appearance of mold. Increased humidity in the room is the result of poor ventilation or mistakes made by builders during the construction phase of the building. Installing ultra-tight plastic windows, sealing gaps and cracks are the first steps towards eliminating mold.
Removal of old finishing materials.
Cleaning the wall from existing mold colonies.
Treatment of fungus-affected areas with sandpaper.
Application of fungicides such as hydrogen peroxide, bleach solution or copper sulphate. The latter is obtained by dissolving 100 g of vitriol in 10 liters of water. All fungicides are considered toxic, so gloves, goggles and a respirator must be used when working with these liquids, as well as periodically ventilating the treated area. For the complete destruction of mold, fungicidal treatment is recommended to be repeated 4-5 times with a six-hour interval between procedures.

How to properly prepare the walls

Preparing walls for wallpapering includes several mandatory steps. First, the old finish is removed. Removing ordinary paper wallpaper is not difficult. To do this, it is enough to wet them with warm water and wait for it to be absorbed. Such a trick will not only facilitate the process of eliminating the old finish, but also save you from raising dust clouds into the air when cleaning the walls with a metal spatula.

The oil paint coating is removed with a soapy solution and sandpaper. Mineral paint is removed as follows: a thin layer is washed off with a brush, and a thick one is removed with a metal scraper. Enamel paint is dissolved with a soap or soda solution. Dispersion paint will have to be scraped off with a spatula.

If necessary, the cleaned wall is treated with a fungicide. Note that antifungal substances are part of some brands of wallpaper glue, which is advisable to use to prevent the appearance of colonies of pathogens.

For priming walls, special liquid mixtures are used, differing in composition and penetration depth. There are the following types of primer materials:

Universal.
Alkyd, intended exclusively for wooden structures.
Perchlorovinyl, used for processing concrete and brick structures.
Homemade, made from diluted wallpaper paste.

At the final stage of processing the walls, they are aligned. To do this, on a pre-primed surface, irregularities are marked, to which special attention must be paid. Such areas include bumps, depressions, chips and cracks. After the defects are eliminated, the wall is puttied. A pier that has undergone such processing is considered ready for further decoration with wallpaper or paint.

It is no secret to anyone that a very important stage in any construction work is preparation. Wallpaper is no exception. Despite the fact that this stage, at first glance, is hardly noticeable, it is very important, since properly conducted preparation affects the success of the main work. The life of the wallpaper, the quality of their pasting, etc. - it all depends on how carefully the walls and partitions of the room were processed before gluing the wallpaper.

Primary requirements

Of course, before starting work on wallpapering, it is necessary to carry out a thorough treatment of the walls. Let's try to explain why this is necessary. First of all, it should be borne in mind that any repair is not done for a couple of months, but at least for several years. That is why it must be of high quality.

To obtain the best result, it is necessary to carefully and correctly prepare the walls of the room.

For this reason, it is necessary to go to certain time and money costs in order to ensure the high quality of the repairs carried out and the long service life of pasted wallpapers, regardless of their size or type.

So, what are the basic requirements for preparing walls before wallpapering? What should be their surface? Let's list the main ones:

Under no circumstances should the surface be wet. Dry walls are ideal for starting work. If they are not dry enough or there is a high level of atmospheric humidity in the room - ventilate the room or turn on the heater for a while, which will “dry” the air, and at the same time the walls themselves;
walls must be thoroughly washed beforehand. In addition, they should not have any stains, and, moreover, fungus or mold, which could subsequently come through the new glued wallpaper. For this, after you have processed the surface of the wall, it must be carefully primed;
of course, there should be no old wallpaper on the wall, as well as other falling off or flaky residues on the wall. This must be done in order to protect future wallpaper from the occurrence of "bubbles" and swelling that may appear in such places.

It is very important to carefully remove the old wallpaper

So, in order for the walls of your apartment or country house to meet the above requirements, you must do the following:

Completely get rid of a layer or several layers of old wallpaper. Dismantling should be done carefully, without damaging the surface of the wall.
Further, surface treatment is carried out with sandpaper (sanding), and, if necessary, stapling.
After applying the putty, some areas may require treatment with a primer. And finally, the preparatory work is being completed.

So, let's dwell on these stages in more detail.

How to process walls: the first steps

To begin with, we need to carry out a high-quality and thorough dismantling of the old wallpaper that was pasted on the wall before the repair.

Remove everything unnecessary from the room: furniture, clothes, personal items. When it comes to dismantling skirting boards, you should be careful with them, because old-style wooden skirting boards can break when trying to dismantle them. As professional repairmen testify in their numerous reviews, such a simple trick as using an ordinary cloth dipped in water to soak the old wallpaper layer can help you.

Photo: we free the room from the furniture, then remove the nails and screws from the walls and partitions

Then, you should make sure that there are no foreign objects left on the wall surface, including old nails, self-tapping screws, dowels, etc. If necessary, remove them. At the end of the preliminary stage of preparing and processing the walls, carefully inspect the surface of the walls of the room, making sure that it is ready for the next stage of work.

Attention! Avoid sticking new wallpapers on old ones! This is a prerequisite for a good repair, because otherwise, after repair, the texture or pattern of the old layer may appear on the surface, and bubbles may also appear.

Leveling and filling walls

If necessary, the walls will need to be leveled. Alignment itself can be done with plaster. Depending on the curvature or depth of the damage or irregularities in the wall, the plaster layer can also vary in thickness.

The plastering stage requires the preparation of a plaster solution (mixture) as well as the ability to work with spatulas. Please note that the application of the plaster must be carried out strictly in the direction from the bottom up. After leveling with plaster, we just have to check the evenness

An important step is the priming of the surface of the walls

the resulting surface using a long level or rights and la. If it is not at hand, and you do not want to spend extra money on its purchase, then the usual plumb line is quite enough.

In the event that, during a thorough check of the plastered surface, some shortcomings were identified, they should be eliminated with puttying. To do this, you should purchase a standard inexpensive wall putty, available at almost any hardware store. Puttying can be carried out in several stages, especially in cases with deep cracks and chips in the plaster.

Completion of work

After the puttying is completed, the last stage begins - surface treatment with finishing sanding paper. First of all, you should make sure that the putty is completely frozen. After that, you can start sanding the wall. Sandpaper is best fixed on a special grater. A simple straight bar will do.

Efforts to process the wall with sandpaper should be uniform. After you have sanded the surface of all the walls in the room, once again treat them with a primer, wait until it dries - and you can start wallpapering. Video instruction:

With all the variety of modern finishing materials, wallpapering the walls remains the easiest and most inexpensive way to update the interior. Vinyl and paintable, photo wallpaper, glass wallpaper and liquid - the choice is yours. Preparing the walls for wallpaper is the most important step. Resist the temptation to stick new wallpaper on the current, or on a painted wall: the old coating will inevitably crack, swell, spoil the look of the room. In the old housing stock, the walls are not perfectly even, and the corners are far from straight. Invest a little money and effort into surface preparation and you won't see the new wallpaper warp with the old, or follow the curvature of uneven walls. Preparation is divided into several stages.

Dismantling of old material

If you are going to update the interior, where the wallpaper was previously pasted, then they need to be removed. De-energize the room so as not to get an electric shock: when removing wallpaper, you will use sharp tools and wet the walls. Lay newspapers on the floor, take out furniture, or cover it with a film. Removing the old coating is a messy and time consuming process, but it can be made easier by knowing a few tricks.

Find a section of the wall from which the wallpaper separates well. Pry the canvas with a spatula or knife and gently pull. It is not necessary to pull sharply, the old coating has become brittle. It's fine if you can strip off entire strips of trim, but you're more likely to come across areas of the surface where the wallpaper is very secure.
Firmly glued wallpapers can be removed after soaking them. Treat the surface with warm water from a spray bottle or roll with a roller dipped in hot water. Remove the soaked coating with a wide spatula.
Before soaking washable or vinyl wallpaper, roll it with a roller with metal spikes, this will break the moisture-resistant film. If there is no such tool, cut the surface with a sharp knife.
If the old coating was glued to the PVA, you can remove it with laundry soap. Grate a bar, pour three liters of water and bring to a boil. Treat the walls with a roller or sponge, after 20 minutes you can remove the wallpaper.
Vinegar, dissolved in hot water, will cope with both PVA and construction adhesive. Dilute a crushed piece of laundry soap and 400 ml of vinegar in a bucket of boiling water. Process 1.5-2 m 2 of the wall, after 20 minutes start work. If some areas do not lend themselves, they will have to be cleaned with a metal brush or moisture-resistant sandpaper.
After removing the wallpaper, wipe the wall with a sponge dipped in clean water, this will wash off small particles of paper, glue and detergent residue.
If the old glue turned out to be of very high quality, steam the surface. Attach a wet cloth to the wall, iron it with an iron at maximum power. An iron with a steam generator or a household steamer will do this task even better. After removing the coating, dry the walls to prevent mold.
In hardware stores you can buy a special wash. Apply it on the walls, leave for 2-3 hours, then remove the wallpaper with a spatula or a wide knife.

Removing old paint

Oil paint forms a smooth surface with poor adhesion, and water-based paint under the influence of wallpaper glue will begin to bubble. Oil paint can be removed with a blow dryer and a spatula, or washed off with a special old paint thinner. The water emulsion can be soaked with soapy water and cleaned with a spatula.

Surface priming

After removing the old coating, the walls need further processing. Regardless of what the next stage of work will be, you need to prime the surface, which will allow:

Reduce the consumption of wallpaper glue;
Increase the service life of the finish coating;
Give the surface uniformity;
Improve adhesion.

Choose a primer suitable for the surface of the walls. Acrylic is intended for puttied and plastered walls, alkyd for wooden ones. The primer is applied using a construction roller, in the corners you should use a brush. After the first layer is completely dry, apply the second. The primed walls are smooth and slightly sticky.

Surface plastering

It is necessary to carry out in cases where there are significant irregularities in the walls. Inexpensive plaster mixtures are produced on the basis of cement or gypsum. It is easier to work with gypsum compositions, they are more plastic, have a fine grain size, but are not intended for rooms with high humidity. Acrylic and latex compounds can be used in any room, but they are quite expensive, so they are used as putty to level small irregularities.

Operating procedure

On a pre-primed wall, install construction beacons according to the level. Follow the manufacturer's instructions - the package indicates the minimum and maximum layer thickness and the time for complete drying.

Between adjacent beacons with a trowel, throw a plaster mix.
With smooth movements from bottom to top, and from left to right, using the rule, stretch the plaster.
Add the mixture to the resulting voids, and remove the excess with a spatula.
After the walls have dried, remove the beacons and plaster their installation sites. It is impossible to leave lighthouses in the thickness of the plaster, over time they will rust, and stains will appear on the wallpaper.

If smoothing and glossing was not carried out during the plastering process, the surface will be grainy and uneven, it is impossible to glue wallpaper on such walls.

Surface putty

After the plaster has dried, prime the walls and proceed to putty. This procedure is carried out in one or several stages, depending on which wallpaper is chosen for pasting the walls. Thick vinyl wallpapers with a pronounced texture do not require a perfectly smooth surface. For pasting walls with thin and smooth wallpaper, you will have to carry out both basic and finishing putty. The finely dispersed structure of the putty mixture evens out the graininess of the plaster layer.

To work, you will need a long and standard spatula.

Scoop the mixture with a short spatula, evenly distribute it over a long one, and apply the putty with force on the wall with smoothing movements. After the solution has completely dried, sand the surface with 240 or 320 grit sandpaper. During sanding, dust is generated that must be removed with a vacuum cleaner, and in case of heavy dust, wipe the wall with a damp cloth. Be sure to prime the walls after sanding. On the dried surface, you can glue the wallpaper.

Wall preparation in a new building

Apartments in a new building can be rented out with plastered walls, or “in concrete”. In the first case, check the quality of the plaster. Tap the walls. Poor-quality mortar applied in violation of technology may crumble or crack. You need to get rid of such a finish - it will continue to collapse. When the strength of the plaster is beyond doubt, check the walls with a spirit level. If the walls are “littered”, they will have to be leveled with a plaster composition.

If the surface has passed the level test, take a two-meter rail, attach it to the wall in different directions. An error of 1-3 mm does not need alignment. Depressions and bulges within 5-7 mm will have to be puttied. Larger differences require plastering. If your apartment has concrete walls, then you can use it for additional insulation. The sequence of work remains the same: plastering, puttying, grinding. Priming is done after each stage.

Preparing walls before applying liquid wallpaper

Liquid wallpaper is a dry mixture of cellulose and silk fibers, decorative inclusions, pigment and glue. Before applying to the wall, dry components are diluted with water and applied to the wall with a spatula. Liquid wallpaper has a three-dimensional structure that will hide minor wall errors, but this is a rather expensive material, so pre-preparation of the walls will help save money and allow you to get a high-quality coating.

Surface preparation is carried out by analogy with the preparation of walls for pasting with ordinary wallpaper, but has several features:

Make sure that there are no nails, screws or other metal inclusions in the wall that can rust over time. Rust spots will show through the decorative layer, spoiling its appearance.
Cover the leveled surface of the wall with 2-3 layers of light water-dispersion paint to avoid spotting the decorative layer.
The concrete wall needs to be puttied with gypsum putty, it will give the wall an even white color and hide all the bumps. After the putty has dried, a primer is applied in two layers, then a water-dispersion paint in three layers.

Preparing walls for wallpapering is within the power of even inexperienced craftsmen.

Follow the instructions for the selected materials, follow the sequence of work and remember: an attempt to save time or money at the preparatory stage will result in the need for a complete redo of the repair.

Before starting the preparation of the walls, you need to clean them of the old finish. Most often, this is not so easy to do, but you need to make every effort and clean the walls completely. If pieces of old wallpaper remain on the walls, all further work will become meaningless, the same applies to whitewashing, and especially to old paint. An exception is sometimes made for oil paint, if it seems impossible to remove it completely, the surface is well sanded with a grinder and left like that. Oil paint literally grows into the walls, and it is unlikely that it will be possible to remove it completely.

Before removing the old layer of plaster, you need to assess its condition. In the event that the coating crumbles and cracks are present on it, it must be removed. But even if the coating looks intact and looks good, you need to completely tap the wall for voids and voiced places. This sound means that the plaster has lagged behind the wall in a rather thick and durable layer, and therefore has not yet crumbled. If there are few such places and they are small in area, they beat off the plaster pointwise only in these places. If the voids are large or very small, it will be easier to remove the plaster completely and apply the layer again.

Preparation of the cleaned concrete base

The concrete base, completely cleaned of old coatings, is primed. There are many acrylic-based primers specially designed for concrete walls. They are most often applied with a paint roller, and in hard-to-reach places they are smeared gently with a brush. The wall must dry completely, the required time is most often indicated on the packaging. So that the adhesive layer does not become dusty, it is also not worth postponing work on applying plaster for a long time.

Infrequently, concrete walls are even enough to not need plaster, which levels any surface. Most often, gypsum-based mixtures are used, as they are easier to apply and dry faster. This stage, like the previous one, is skipped if the old layer of plaster is well preserved and it was not necessary to remove it. In this case, the repair immediately proceeds to the next stage.

It is also rarely possible to apply plaster evenly, and therefore, after plastering, putty is often used to smooth out all small irregularities. Before applying the putty, the walls are treated with a deep penetration acrylic primer.

A primer for wallpaper is applied to the plastered and dried wall, after which the walls and other surfaces are completely ready for pasting. The primer can be wallpaper glue or an acrylic primer for interior work.