Many people have heard about texturing right over wallpaper as a direct, cheaper solution to getting that 'old world' tuscan look.

Beware! There are high risks. It costs about a dollar per square ft to remove wallpaper. A ruined falling off textured wall is a loss of a minimum of 3 dollars a square ft, usually more. Best case, it happens that the paper MOSTLY stays in place...except at the corners, seams and where it bubbles...even after thoroughly priming the paper. The paper actually has to be made waterproof. This is a heavy laydown of primer. It costs application time and materials and drying time. This usually cancels any savings that not removing paper would provide.

Years ago I was being mentored in the business by a 50 year old veteran painter. He was an experienced texture/faux guy but he had underbid a kitchen and was trying to shave time off the job to make up the potential loss. While the client and I went to SubWay to get lunch for the crew, he had hurriedly oil primed the kitchen wallpaper with fast dry primer and after the 1 hour re-coat time started texturing. We had eaten our lunch before returning. In the hour and forty minutes of elapsed time he had the kitchen three quarters textured. We were pleased! It looked great! A while later, the texture guy took me aside and explained he had pulled everyone on the job into the kitchen for the emergency prime session so the owner wouldn't ask questions about the wallpaper needing to be removed. I thought "I don't know if that will work but you're the guy with 20 yrs experience, OK." Within an hour the entire kitchen was wrinkling and bubbling. The mud stays wet for hours and will penetrate any porous spots in the primer coat and fill the cellulose grain of the paper causing it to swell...just like spilled coffee on notebook paper. What a mess. The mud texture became a release agent completely liquifying the wallpaper paste. This allowed the paper to quite literally fall off the wall with the slightest provocation.

In the end the owner got the best possible finish he could have had, texture over clean walls; (Of course the losses were born by me not the customer) The mentor learned that experience doesn't cancel the laws of physics. I learned the importance of accurate bidding and selling jobs on the basis of real costs not wishful thinking

WHENEVER POSSIBLE, REMOVE THE PAPER.

If you want to save money ask for an allowance for removing the paper before the painters arrive. You should be able to shave a dollar per square ft off the cost of your project...Painters really don't like to remove paper any more than you do, so often,they will gladly pay you to do the work. The walls should be completely free of paper...no shards, and certainly all the layers should be removed if there are multiple layers. Time, Patience, Water in a trigger-spray bottle, and a small scraper to help you get the edge started so you can peel it off when it is ready...spritz at one minute intervals for 5 minutes before trying to peel. Once you get the timing it is perversely gratifying...like peeling scabs. GOOD LUCK ON YOUR NEXT PROJECT.

We had just finished a 3 day project of repairing the exterior of a clients home, replaced rotted wood, scrapped, primed and caulked over the previous days. This day the weather was hot, clear and bright when we started painting the exterior in the morning but began to cloud up about an hour before we were finished. We hurried along to get the job finished. Within 30 minutes of our putting on the last coat and as we were cleaning up, all of a sudden the skies turned black, as it does here in Texas and all of a sudden we had a 50mph vertical rain that stung your face.

We hid under shelter for an hour as it continued thinking it would stop but, didn't so we went home for the night.

I worried the entire night that we would have to go back and scrap, re-prime and repaint several areas that were getting pounded the evening before by the hard vertical rain.

We went back the next morning after things had dried out and inspected the paint to look for damage and thanks to the premium paints and our expert painters there was no visible damage at all!!!

I went back 2 months later to re-inspect the home just for my own piece of mind and found everything in order and looking beautiful. Whew!