A painted wall is not just a painted wall...
It could be garbage paint!
Garbage paint is what many builders (both high and low end) use when they are painting the houses they are constructing. In some places this is known as builder flat. It is simply a mixture of sheetrock mud and water. In other words, GARBAGE.
This PAINT (?) is designed to give the builder something to cover the raw sheetrock without spending much money on paint. It isn't really paint, it is garbage, but it passes itself off as paint.
Horrible to put wallcoverings over
When you are papering a painted wall you are not papering the wall --- you are papering the paint. It is sort of like trying to make love with all your clothes on. You can kiss and hug and have a generally good time, but there are some things you are not going to be able to touch, because those things have something covering them.
Papering a painted wall is exactly the same. There is no way you can get to the wall because there is paint between you and the wall. So when you stick your wallcovering to paint, you are trusting that the paint will remain stuck to the wall. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't.
From the builders point of view
Before we go off kicking the builder for using garbage paint, let's look at the situation from their point of view. He needs to get this home sold. He needs to get this home sold with as many dollars in his pocket as he can get. If he uses a good quality paint and good wallcovering undercoats is that going to make any difference in the price of the home? Probably not.
The homeowner probably will never realize the difference in good quality paints and those that aren't. They are much to busy looking at the things that sell homes like big fancy bathrooms and great kitchens. As far as the wallcoverings go, the builder just wants them to stay up until the house is sold. After that it is usually someone elses problem.
When working over this kind of paint...
It is important that you remember the absolutely unbreakable first rule of wallcovering prep work:
Never hang wallcoverings over anything other than a wallcovering undercoat.
So what kind of wallcovering primer should we use? We need to try to get to the wall. So our best bet would be a good acrylic THIN primer.
Saturate the wall with this primer. Let it dry overnight. (I don't care what the can says about a few hours dry time. We need everything going for us that we can get and overnight will help.)
It would also help if we did not use wallcoverings that have a huge swell factor. The less stress we put in the unstable situation the better.
If you are in the process of building a home you can avoid this problem if you check with builder and find out what kind of paint they are using in your home. An ounce of prevention....
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