Painting Vinyl Walls In Mobile Homes: Asked And Answered

How To Paint Your Vinyl Walls

When you first renovated your newly acquired mobile home, we bet you were beaming at the savings that you managed to secure by opting for the most optimal material for each step of the way, including the vinyl-coated wallboards. At the time, it seemed like it was your pride and joy but five years later when you are looking at upgrading the interior aesthetic, it becomes an obstacle. Paint just does not seem to stay on those walls and it has become frustrating that your mobile home is stuck with this monotony. This is why we are here to address the top five questions that bug homeowners plagued with the vinyl situation.

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Answer 1: Removing Battens and Paint Over Vinyl Mobile Home Walls

When it comes to painting over vinyl-coated wallboards, one of the most glaring obstacles is the battens and seams that cover the surface. With them in the way, we will never be able to get a clean paint job. So, the good news is that the unsightly beings can be removed.

Remove the grease and oil from the walls using the appropriate cleaning agent.
Meticulously remove the battens from the wall without breaching the coating on the wallboard.
Once the battens have been removed, there will be vacant gaps in place so before filling that up, prime the walls with Kilz.
When the primer has dried, fill up the gaps with caulk or mud halfway through and apply another layer of primer and allow that to dry.
Once that has dried, add the remaining caulk or mud over the other half of the seam.
If you are ok with imperfect seams, you can simply finish it up with an orange-peel texture, otherwise, you would need to spend some time to sand it out.

Answer 2: Best Primer for Painting Vinyl Mobile Home Walls

Since primer is a key ingredient when it comes to retouching vinyl walls, we have decided to recommend the appropriate primers for the type of wall that you will be dealing with. So, if you are facing certain challenges when it comes to painting your vinyl-wallboards, here are the best primers for each situation.

Drywall

In these cases, it is recommended that you opt for latex primers instead of oil-based primers. Unless you are aiming towards a wall with rougher aesthetics, you definitely want to stay away from oil-based primers. If you intend on pasting a wallpaper or hiding a stain, then oil-primers are good.

Stains

If left unattended, unsightly stains can bleed through a new layer of top coat which makes the hassle of painting the wall a redundant one. So, before painting over, a primer should be applied. For water stains, oil-based primers work the best as the stains will not be able to permeate the layer of oil. As for smoke and soot damage, pigmented shellac primer is the most ideal in handling that.

Shiny Surfaces

For surfaces that are generally more shiny and smooth, it will require a different approach. Bonding primers will work well here as they stick to glass, tile, Formica, and previously painted surfaces.

Answer 3: Wallpapering Vinyl Walls in Mobile Homes

Before we go over the steps, there are two ways to wallpaper over vinyl walls. The first is to remove battens and also fill in the seams. In this case, simply refer to the above to learn how to go about doing so. The other option is to leave everything untouched and simply wallpaper over the battens.

Whether or not you will be removing the battens and filling in the seams, all three start with the same step. That is, to ensure that walls are free from grime and oil. You will need to use a good cleaning agent for this. When the walls are clean, the wallpaper adhesive would be able to form a strong bond to the walls without much obstruction.
If you are not intending on removing the battens, the above would be the only step. If you do remove the battens and fill in the seams, instructions on how to do so are mentioned above. Then once that is done, cleaning and pasting the wallpaper over is all that is left.

Answer 4: Cleaning Up Past Mistakes

Not all mobile homes come newly packaged. Most of it comes with the personality of their old owners. So, in most scenarios, there would need to be an overhaul of the vinyl wallboards.

One of the situations that you might observe is that past owners simply painted over the battens and the seams. If not, they would have removed the battens and done a shoddy job with the seams, resulting in a mess. If it’s the former, simply follow the above tips to clean that up. As for the latter, there will be more work involved in this. Let us break it to you first that you would definitely have to restart the whole process again.

The first step would involve sanding down the old fillings. However, when you do so, be wary as to not damage the vinyl.
When the old fillings are removed, apply Kliz on the wall and follow the steps as above to redo filling in the seams.

Answer 5: Repairing Holes and Painting Vinyl Mobile Home Walls

You might ask how do these holes even appear in your mobile home. Well, it could be a result of personal home makeover projects to remove unsightly protrusions in the wall. This could have been due to enthusiastic previous homeowners and you are left with picking up the slack. Either way, the steps to repairing these holes and painting over the vinyl mobile home walls are fairly simple.

Holes can be filled in just like how you would fill in seams with caulk. After filling in the holes, it turns out slightly patchy. To solve this, you could wallpaper over the patches or paint over them, the steps to do are stated above.

Conclusion

These are our solutions for those of you wanting to paint your vinyl walls. Hopefully, we have managed to solve the questions that have been bugging mobile homeowners!