Upstairs someone had papered over woodchip wallpaper with textured wallpaper.   That worked out just as well as you might expect.   I’m getting ready for new electrics so it is useful to figure out what the walls are made of.

The wallpaper came off very easily, but the shiny green stuff is waterproof paint over lining paper and is proving more challenging to remove.

Some of the green stuff fell off anyway and it’s what’s underneath that is interesting.   I think the wall was skimmed with gypsum in 1921.   It’s a bit of a shame as I had been hoping to find evidence of an earlier layout.   But I maybe found the original 1920s wallpaper!   It’s very dark.  It must have been gloomy up there.

I bought a Zinsser scoring tool and some DIF concentrate.   They actually work!    The green stuff is gone from the stairs and the plaster underneath is well preserved having been protected by a thick cushion of wallpaper.

Modern practice would be to paint onto the plaster but I can’t do that – it’s 100 years old and perfectly preserved and it would not be possible to remove nasty modern paint from plaster.   I’ll put lining paper on.  Then use a nice paint.

I had just cleaned the whole house and stripping the stairs made a huge mess again.

And I found more damp.   The salts at the bottom of the plaster are particularly impressive being more than 1m above ground level.    I should imagine the wall has no damp course, and the walls had been waterproofed on both sides in the usual misguided way.   I’ll let the wall breathe so it can dry out.