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novice123_gw

Upgrading House in Preparation to Sell

Novice123
10 years ago

My house was built in 1997 and has wallpaper wainscoting in the kitchen and bathrooms. How popular is wallpaper in today's market? If not, I would like to ask for advice in retexturing the walls where the paper was in order to match the rest of the wall surface.

Comments (6)

  • rrah
    10 years ago

    I would pull down all the wallpaper. I don't know when it was put up, but if it was soon after the house was built, it's outdated and most people don't want wallpaper.

    I'm not sure what you mean by retexturing the walls to match the rest of the wall surface. Do you have some type of textured walls or are they flat? If they are flat, you may need to touch up a few areas with some drywall repair compound, prime and paint.

  • LuAnn_in_PA
    10 years ago

    Yep - remove the paper and glue, repair damage (if any), prime and paint!

  • newbuyer2007
    10 years ago

    Definitely remove the wallpaper. Whether it is in fashion or not, the odds of your wallpaper being the exact paper that a buyer would want are very slim.

    What do the other walls look like? We had to remove wallpaper and have someone skim coat the walls to match the non papered walls in our place.

  • barbcollins
    10 years ago

    If the wall above has a special texture that's hard to match, I think I would put up beadboard or another type of wainscoting where the wallpaper was.

    Or put up chair rail or trim at the dividing line then just paint below (maybe with another color).

  • jannie
    10 years ago

    Rule of thumb, remove the wallpaper and paint,paint, paint. Paint above and below the chairrail two contrasting or complimentary colors (maybe blue and yellow?) . New owner will see it as clean and neat, well maintained. Of course they will do whatever they like with it. Not too many people like wallpaper, myself included. My MIL had this gross red velvet flocked paper in her hallway.

  • c9pilot
    10 years ago

    I've been taking buyers around of various ages and they invariably shied away from homes/condos that were heavily wallpapered - that was not considered move-in ready if wallpaper needed to be removed, while repainting was okay.
    The other thing I noticed is that nobody seems to like floral anymore, so wallpaper, window treatments, bedspreads, throw pillows, and faux flowers have gotta go.

    And that would be "updating" not "upgrading". I wouldn't spend any money to upgrade if you're just going to sell it.

    This post was edited by c9pilot on Sun, Aug 11, 13 at 12:55