Can I paint over woodchip?

[El batan]

I already tried taking the woodchip off the wall in one room and half the wall came away with it. So is there anything I can use to paint over the woodchip that makes it look well less like woodchip?

[smudge]

So you've discovered what a pain in the proverbials trying to get woodchip wallpaper off walls can be! When we moved into this house, the hall, stairs & landing was covered in orange woodchip! It took 4 of us to score all walls with stanley knives, then bit by bit soaked the paper with warm water & finally managed to remove it all. BUT the easy option would be to paint the woodchip walls in matt emulsion. Don't use paint with a sheen of any kind, else it will show up any imperfections. Good luck with your decorating! (P.S. I'd like to find the person/s responsible for designing woodchip wallpaper. I'd paste it all over the interior of their property & make them remove it themselves with a nail file!!).

[darth vader]

soaking in hot water does go some way to ease the pain of removing it. as an alternative hire a sander and sand the bloody thing off the wall as i have once done, then put a layer of plain (white) wall paper over the top and paint over this.

[saffstar]

You can paper over it too cos my Mum's just done it and it looks fine. You just need to find an inoffensive anaglypta type that's thick enough to go over it.

[bizzylizzy]

We found the best way of getting it off was by using a steamer. Lightly scoring the paper first helps as well. You can hire professional steamers for the day or half day if you're speedy. Good luck. Bizzylizzy