How do you paint over wallpaper?

If walls were prepared correctly, you should be able to steam the paper off. I accidentally did the when one of my kids were sick. I put a evaporator in the room with them and closed the door. After several hours went to check on child and all the wall paper was on the floor . Not planning this, but sure made job easy. Then I had to prepare walls and paint.

The wall was not prepared correctly. There are two layers of wallpaper on the wall. The second layer reveals the first layer and when you try to remove that layer, it pulls off the sheetrock cover. I really need to paint over the wall paper. Thank you.

Julie,. DON'T paint over it. Take the wall paper down, and scrub the glue off. If you want to wall paper, you'll be on a clean surface, and if you paint, you don't have to worry about wall paper bleeding through. Aloha! You'll need a paint tray, a roller with a stick to attach the roller, drop cloth, a scraper. Roll the roller into the warm water in the paint tray. Roll up the wall from the bottom up. Scrape as you go along. Then scrub the glue off with warm water and a sponge. Aloha!

Drywall paper should stay on as long as u don’t use one of the round roller with teeth on it to put holes in paper to make the stripper work better. For 25yrs I used dawn and water. Downy makes everything so slick u can’t get hold of the paper to strip it off. If u do make some places on the drywall u can take a wide drywall knife and get a small tub of Sheetrock mud and go over it with a sanding sponge and then skim coat the mud over the tears very thin and light sand. If u take a shopvac u can get a drywall sanding attachment with it’s on hose to connect to ur hose and all dust goes in the shopvac. Good luck. It’s a coin toss. I’ve had some that in the factory some disgruntled person spraying the glue on the paper got careless and put it on so thick it comes off in pieces size of a quarter. MCGIVER69

Wallpaper was applied to our walls, which were never primed. When we tried to remove it prior to painting, the paper came off in chunks, some of them taking the wallboard with it. We were left with walls that had paper we couldn’t remove, mixed with deep gouges. Our painter solved it by calling a friend who did textured walls, who came in and sprayed on a new finish. Then the painter was able to paint.

I've been painting for years. (I'm older than dirt!)

Do you want easy or budget friendly? Easy would be installing beadboard or shiplap right over the walls. Budget friendly but 'the right way' would be to soak the wallpaper with hot water & fabric softener then peel and scrape with a plastic scraper. When the 'paper' is gone, wash the walls with clean hot water to remove the paste residue. Patch any gouges with spackle or joint compound, sand, prime, paint. Then enjoy your new room. OR .... another thought would be to view other DIY posted projects with similarities and resolutions. Have you thought of adding sand to your paint for a textured look? This is a wonderful opportunity to bring out your creative side and jump into it. Best of luck.