Q: What tools/stuff do I need to skim coat?

A: Some prefer to put joint compound in a ‘mud pan’ (like a bread-making pan), and use what is called a broad knife, which is a wide putty knife. Beyond a 3 inch putty knife, you pretty much start calling them broadknives. I like to use a 10 inch one. it is wide enough. Too wide a knife and you wind up with a weird flex in the blade that can leave hump and ridges in your mud at overlap points.

Others will use what is called a ‘hawk’ (which is a flatboard ontop of a short stick, and then use a trowel with it (like what you use for cement). IMO, the hawk and trowel is good for ceilings as you can catch slobber that falls, towards your face for one thing.

For walls, I like the feel of the control I get using a broadknife vertically on the wall. Something about grabbing the handle of the trowel and pulling sideways bothers me.

So get yourself a 5 gallon pail of ‘lightweight’ ready mix joint compound. It sands easier. Too bad for you, trying to learn mudding by skim coating an entire wall is not easy for the first time. Mudding is like learning how to ride a bike – the training wheels thing, etc. The idea is so you don’t have to sand a ton of mud back off! Unfortunately, you can bet on you are going to have to do a lot of sanding.

Therefore you also need a sanding pole and sanding screen and/or those sanding sponge blocks. I love those things. They come in different grits. Get them all.

You also might consider getting one of those halogen floodlights that you can sit on the floor that adjusts, and has like a 300 watt skinny lamp bulb in it. As you mud, and especially as you sand, you want to cast the light on the wall at an acute angle so that you can see any waves, high spots, low spots, gouges, etc.

Source

You want to wallpaper – or put new texture -  but it’s not smooth enough. Some helpful steps to skim coat and prepare for a beautiful paper, or texture, job.

Easy way to protect baseboard and drop cloths when applying a “skim -coat” of drywall mud to walls.

Q: I took down old wallpaper and exposed sheetrock down to brown paper. It was suggested to use heavy duty wall liner and paint over that. I do not want textured walls or wallpaper. If I use the wall liner only: Do I still need to repair the walls and primer them before adding paper? Also, is wall liner a good option instead of textured walls and wallpaper?

A: Prime the whole thing with Kilz. Then skim coat, sand, and repeat until the walls are smooth. Then prime and paint. This sounds like a lot of work, but it’s the best way to get nice walls again.

A: We’re in the process of doing this to our entire house. Have two rooms finished. You do NOT want to remove the paper down the to the “chalky surface” that is the drywall, stop one layer above that. When you have removed as much of the paper and as you can manually, I recommend sanding the rest of the glue off the wall. I used a drywall sander ($40 rental 8 inch circular sander hooked – 150 GRIT- up to a shop-vac – NO DUST). Once smooth I primed the walls with latex primer to smooth out any grain that was showing, then with oil based primer to seal it (Zinser). Then the skim coating process begins. It depends how smooth you want it to be, I working diligently doing a full skim coat and the walls are near perfect. First coat to fill large gaps, second coat to smooth walls, third coat as finish coat and final quick sand with 220-grit. But I am mildly obsessive-compulsive which helps here.

A: I also had this mess to deal with. I ended up peeling the first layer of drywall off – to the brown paper, sanding off the fuzzies, sealing with primer, patching gouges/uneven spots and then hanging paintable wallpaper. The walls look great and it was very economical. The only cost was for 1 roll of wallpaper, the primer and a sanding block.

A: The brown paper can be sealed down tight with Gardz made by Zinser. You will need to remove the loose stuff and then apply it very heavy until it won’t take any more then let it dry and the paper won’t bubble any more. The nice thing is it is a waterborne product. Then proceed with whatever you want to put over it to smooth it out.

Sources:
http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf275142.tip.html
http://www.fauxforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=3609