How to Get Smooth Walls for Wallpaper the Easy Way

Sharing the easiest way to get smooth walls for wallpaper to eliminate your knockdown texture from showing through once the wallpaper is hung on the wall.

I had a HUGE FAIL!

At first. But the old adage “when at first you don’t succeed, try try again” has never rung more accurately than this last week when I added a skim coat to my walls to prepare them for wallpaper.

Honestly, it wasn’t all that terrible, but it was awful enough that I had to redo what I had already done. Don’t worry, I will share what I did wrong and then what I did right to make it perfect!

In life, you have to be willing to accept that to do something well, you will have to embrace the learning that comes with it.

How to get smooth textured walls the easy way

I have knockdown texture on the walls in my home. I don’t love it, but it is what I have.

If I had a choice and the world was perfect, I would absolutely have hand-troweled walls and I would have even paid the extra money for them if we had built this house. But we bought it as a spec house so….here we are.

Knockdown texture shows through wallpaper, even if it is a light texture. And the thinner the paper (like a lot of peel-and-stick) the more it shows. Even the best wallpaper that comes unpasted shows a little bit of texture. The more heavy the texture on the wall, the more it shows through.

If the wallpaper is applied without a skim coat, the paper settles into the texture and almost looks embossed. This is really frustrating to me. I don’t want to see the texture rippling through my paper. I want it seamless, beautiful, and smooth.

You may hold up the wallpaper and think that your texture won’t be a problem. But once the paper is wet with paste or water, or you peel back that paper layer of peel and stick you will see the texture show through because the paper settles into the crevices.

To achieve smooth walls I decided to apply a skim coat.

What is a skim coat?

A skim coat is a thin layer of drywall joint compound (or mud) that goes over the drywall to create a smooth finish.  The purpose of skim coating is to repair damaged walls and smooth down intentionally applied wall texture. It does this by filling in the gaps to make the surface smooth.  It’s also a quick, long-term solution for repairing minor cracks, filling a joint, or leveling an existing flat surface.

In this case, I did a skim coat to smooth out the knockdown texture on my walls and prepare them for wallpaper.

When doing a skim coat you add a small amount of water to drywall joint compound and then layer it over the walls to make them smooth.

 

What supplies do you need to get smooth walls for wallpaper?

Get the right tools before you start to do your skim-coat!

Click here for a shoppable list of ALL the items you will need to skim-coat and wallpaper your space properly.

• Paint pan sized appropriately for your project – you can opt to line the pan with a liner to make clean up easy
• 1 Roller
• 2 roller covers – you will want 3/4″ nap roller cover (made for stucco) to get all the compound into the crevices and you will want a basic, cheap roller cover to apply primer once the compound is dry
• Drywall compound – buy the premixed and get more than you think you will need. I didn’t get enough and had to start over
• Spray bottle with water
• THIS IS THE ONE TOOL THAT WORKS LIKE MAGIC! 
• Mixer attachment for your drill – this is really good to just have in your toolbox anyway. I use mine often for various things.
• Drill
• Tile sponge
• sanding block and sanding paper 120 grit
• Drywall primer

How to smooth out a Wall the easy way

1. Start by adding a little bit of water to your compound while it is in the bucket. Adding water will help it smooth out really well! How much water you add will depend on the size of the container you buy. You will want it to be a creamy peanut butter consistency. Remember, you can always add more water, but you can’t take out if you add too much.
2. Lay protection down over your flooring for easy clean-up. I just used an old sheet.
3. Pour the compound into your paint pan (or just dip your roller into it if you have a 5-gallon bucket).
4. Load your roller generously and be sure that it is completely saturated with the compound.
5. Roll the compound onto the wall in 2-3 foot square sections (it dries fast).
6. Use the spray bottle filled with water to spray both sides of the Magic Trowel.
7. Use your Magic Trowel to smooth it all out. This thing is really amazing!
8. Continue until the project is finished.
9. Let dry overnight.
10. Once dry take a damp tile sponge and rub out any imperfections. This is called wet sanding and won’t create any dust. That is what the large sponges on the list are for. If you need to do more heavy sanding to smooth out your compound then use the block and attachable sandpaper on the list. Wear a mask to filter out drywall dust if you use a sanding block.
11. If you used the wet sponge, let the wall dry completely. F
12. Once dry, roll on a coat of drywall primer to prep your newly coated walls before you paste up wallpaper to protect your walls from damage if you ever remove the wallpaper.
13. Let dry completely. It will feel a little tacky even when it is dry completely and that’s ok! It has prepared your surface for the wallpaper.

A Skim Coat for Wallpaper DON’T

Don’t add too much water to your mixture. You will add just a bit, and you can always add more, but can’t take it back once you put it in.

I added too much water to my drywall compound AND I was being cheap frugal by trying to make one small container of compound last for the whole project. That was a really big mistake that I was sorry for.

In this photo you can see how thin the layer is. You don’t want it to look like that. It needs to be much thicker.

Too much water in my mix made the compound too thin and caused puckering in the finish once it dried so I had to do it all over again with more compound. I should have just bought more compound in the first place and saved myself another afternoon of work.

I am SO happy with the results and my wallpaper looks AMAZING! It looks like I hired a pro to come in and do the project. I can’t wait to use this method again and again.

Look at how smooth the walls are that the wallpaper is being applied to! It is amazing to me and I wish I could do my entire house, lol!!

Spoiler alert: I have already finished the wallpaper and it looks so amazing like a professional installer did the job! It is beautiful! And isn’t that wallpaper so, so, so pretty?!

I love that I get to share this with you. Home takes time but, in the end, it is worth the time you take. There are very few things that give back to you tenfold what you put into them. Your home is one of those rare things.

I also share how to wallpaper inside picture frame molding. That was a fun one in my grandson’s nursery! Oh it turned out SO beautiful!!

Remember, you can do it yourself, but let’s do it together!