I have removed wallpaper and it has left previous paint flaking off leaving bare plaster and the new paint will not cover this, do i need to apply some sort of filler ?

bevy, September 2008

Sand back the loose paint as far as you can and then feather the edges of the paint so that the wall is as flat as you can make it. Use filler if you need to to make the wall really flat. Use as big a filler blade as you can and run the filler into the cracks / edges of the paint and leave as little excess filler as possible. Then paint a one to one mix of water and PVA across the whole wall, leave this to dry and coat a thinned layer of paint over the whole wall. Once this is dry you can put a top coat on.

David, October 2008

As long as the wall is flat and smooth there are two ways to go, #1 lineing paper and paint, covers a multitude of sins and #2 paint the wall with a mix of PVA adhesive and water , it will tell you the ratio on the tin or tub of PVa,this will put a thin coat of latex on the wall that will seal any old porous plaster

renetec, October 2008

Sounds like the original vinyl paint was put on to bare plaster without a priming coat. Some of the paint has stuck to the plaster and some has just formed a paint film hardly attached at all - it is best to slap on a coat of thinned paint that can soak into the plaster, you get better adhesion when the top coat is applied.

From what you say I suspect you will have hard edges between the existing paint and the bare plaster - even if you were able to paint over the whole there would be raised edges where the old paint lies under the new.

Get the wall smooth before attempting to put a finish on it. Prime. Paint.

Richard Buxton, September 2008

there are no holes ,just bare patches we tried a base coat but that didn't work

bevy, September 2008

how deep are the holes its left?

use polyfilla to fill in and sand to smooth.

sonia, September 2008