Removing modern interior paint

[vicky whitworth]

Hello, just a quick question. This weekend I need to remove a modern paint finish (which I think is vinyl silk emusion) from a modern gypsum plaster on an interior wall. The paint is flaking off in large chunks so is quite loose in places, and some of it can be sort of peeled off. I vaguely remember having seen other posts about using a wall paper stripper ie: steam, to get this stuff off. Am I right? Will that work? And what success have others had? Thank you.

 

[MdB]

I'm not sure about the paint (I think it does soften it) but there is a good chance of removing the plaster depending on how well keyed it is to the wall.

In my old (1980's) house, the first coat of paint hadn't been watered down and had therefore not stuck well in places meaning that large sections had flaked off. However, some had stuck well and wasn't easy to get off at all so we had a bit of a problem. I ended up using filler/skim to fill in the sections where the paint had come off and then repainted over the whole lot. Didn't look too bad but wasn't perfect either.

 

[Lime]

What is used all rather depends on how hard and how flat the plaster really is.
On flat surfaces I usually resort to using a Stanley blade scrapper with blades purchased from QD.
The stanley is one of the best plastic scrappers and the blades from QD the cheapest.. 5 @ 39p or some such.
I use a new blade as soon as the installed blade starts to blunt.
That way the paint comes off easily and damage is minimal.
However do be careful as the blades are like razors and too much shove can end up going through the wall.