My Husband and I recently started to remodel our bathroom. What a mess!!!! The biggest problem we have come across is the walls.The house was built in the 60's and they had I believe they are 3" X 3" tiles on the walls...about 3 ft up the wall.They aparently glued these to the wall.I now have about 1/2 inch of nasty brown swirled glue on my walls.I really dont want to have to drywall (because I have no idea how )Plus the walls are plaster and have that wire mess in the middle.We still have to figure out how to fix that in the spots we messed it up!! Any ideas on how to get the glue off and maybe how to repair the plaster? THANKS!!

Can you use a sturdy sort of wall paper to cover the upper area you are talking about? They have many kinds including plain ones with no patterns.

I have done a tiny bit of redecorating, but wallpapering and painting are about as far as I went.

There are quite a few handy-man sort of people on this site that can give you more info, but I thought I'd put in my 2 (depreciated ) cents!

Cover up your wall with beadboard (wainscotting)! This would look great in the bathroom. Just buy the packets of preprimed white bead board. (you can paint the board if you like or even spray paint them outside). Put the board up with Liquid Nails and hammer in a few finishing nails to secure it. As for cutting, there will be some cutting for the trim- but not too much. Trim it out and put up a chair rail. Whoola... beautiful walls.

You can buy prefinished board at Home Depot for $12.00 a pack of 6. They are 32" high. (perfect size) You will make up the 4 inches in your baseboard and the chair rail.

Take a ride up there and ask one of their associates. When you go up there go to the molding section. They are in that isle. They are right where the molding is. They are really helpful. I just did this in my living room and it is just beautiful!

See here

Look how perfect this is.

Beadboard is a great idea....that is what I had planed My only problem is that there was a HUGE mirror and the tile went up and around that!But yes I will get the beadboard...trust me.I like the looks of it and it looks easy enough for me to do!! Thanks!

quote:

My only problem is that there was a HUGE mirror and the tile went up and around that!

No problem! Where the huge mirror was, put up about 5 board panels into a square shape on the top of the wall. (or enough to cover the space where the mirror was) Start this right above your chair rail so there isn't any swirled glued wall exposed. Put some molding around the beadboard. Paint the square panel a different color than the bottom boards.Measure inside of the square for a new mirror. Take that measurement, go to Michaels Craft Store and pick out a plain mirror and have it framed. Hang that mirror evenly spaced inside of the beadboard square on the wall. The beadboard will take up the space where the tile was. It would look something like this but it would have a really nice frame around it. You could even drape some flowers around the mirror. That would be really nice.

I'm wondering if it is a plaster wall at all, from the description it may be an early answer to today's backer board.

Backer board or cement board is specifically designed to take tile. Made of cement it can withstand moisture better than drywall or plaster which falls apart when wet.

Plaster is white, chalky and crumbles easily. Cement is grey, harder and does not crumble easily. You will need to know which you are dealing with to know with what to repair it. If in doubt take a sample of the chipped off wall to any hardware store/ home store so they can tell you what you are dealing with.

Can you chip away the glue without removing too much of the wall? If yes, then proceed, then after you remove the glue you can texture coat the surface of the walls with plaster (AKA Skim Coat) - possibly even skim coat it a bit to get a smoother texture to it. There are adhesive removers on the market as well.

Smoothing and texturing plaster is not really a huge deal; it does take a little skill but is quickly learned. I would suggest using pre-mixed plaster coating and ask the guys and gals at your hardware/home store what tools you need and a quick lesson on how to use those tools effectively. I would also take a sample of the original wall so they know what type of plaster you need to finish coat your walls.

http://www.doityourself.com/wall/repairdamagedplasterwalls.htm Has a lot of useful information along those lines.

I would suggest texturing the wall with the finish coat, there are many ways to do that, from bouncing a sponge to leave behind peaks which you knock down with a trowel, to purposefully leaving behind trowel lines.

A good decorative and more popular wall treatment is Venetian Plaster:

http://spatespainting.com/VenetianPlaster/instructional.html
http://www.texston.com/

Venetian Plaster may very well cover up and hide any and all flaws that your wall will have from being repaired. The last link has a decent gallery of types of plaster jobs. The technique specifically aims for that old world (Mediterranean) aged/semi-deteriorated look in several of the photos.