It’s Important to Wipe Dust Off Sanded Walls

This wall was originally textured , so I’ve skim-float ed it to smooth the surface. Once the smoothing compound is dry , I sand it smooth. That results in a lot of dust . Nothing sticks to dust, including primer and wallpaper . So all dust has to be removed before the paper can be install ed .
Even after vacuuming the floor and walls, as you can see to the right of this electrical outlet , dust remains on the wall. This bit you can see, but there is also a fine layer of dust left over the entire surface. You may not see it, but it will interfere with adhesion . I liken it to flouring a cake pan – the wallpaper will kinda stick – but not really stick.

Here’s some more dust , that’s accumulated on top of the vanity backsplash.

All this dust has to be removed.

My ShopVac will suck up most of the dust . But, like I said, a thin layer still clings to the wall.

The only way to completely remove it is to wipe the walls down with a damp sponge.

The sponge will collect any dust residue. In addition, it will wet the wall a little (darker areas in the photo), and that wetness will cause any still-remaining dust to bond with the smoothing compound on the wall.
You’ve got to wipe pretty much every square inch of the wall. Yes, it’s a PITA. But it’s the only way to make completely certain that there is no loose dust still hanging around.
All you lovers of your vacuum sander attachments and Festool s – trust me – they are not as thorough as the damp sponge method.

Here’s what I’m using.

This started out as a rectangular sponge. But it was large for my hand, and hard to hold on to. So I cut “thumb grips” in either side.

To get into corners, I took a scissors and cut one end into an angle .

Here’s my sponge, wetting the wall and collecting dust. My pointy angle fits nicely into the corner .

You only get so many swipes before the sponge clogs with dust and won’t collect more. So it has to be rinsed frequently . I use a 1-gallon bucket half full of warm water .

Eventually, that bucket is going to fill with dust residue. Here I’ve dumped out most of the water , leaving settled residue on the bottom of the bucket.

If you swirl the water around, the sludge will suspend in the water, and you could dump it down the sink . Be sure the water is running . Especially kitchen sinks that have garbage disposals .
But I prefer to dump it all down the toilet . One flush and GONE!
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It’s A Misconception That A Liner Will Smooth A Textured Wall

A theory has been circulating for decades that a liner will disguise texture or imperfections in a wall. A liner is a special paper applied to the walls before the actual decorative wallpaper goes up. It has its purpose – but smoothing walls is not one of them. At least, not in my opinion.

Here you see an area where a pedestal sink has been removed. In so doing, part of the drywall was torn away (the reddish brown area) and the wall surface is left uneven.

I’m using liner in this room for another reason. Here it has been applied over the damaged area. As you can see, the uneven texture of the wall shows right through (we say that it telegraphs ). Once the liner is good and dry, it will shrink and pull even tighter to the wall, and the ridges underneath will be even more visible.
And once the wallpaper goes up, all this will telegraph through the new wallpaper, as well.

Here’s the liner paper I used today. It’s a fairly thick, stiff, non-woven material, so has more ” bridging ” power than other types of liner paper. Still, as you see above, it’s not enough to smooth textured or uneven wall surfaces.
The only way to properly and thoroughly smooth a textured wall, IMO , is to skim-float it and then sand it smooth, and then apply a wallpaper primer. Please do a Search here (upper right corner) to find previous posts on this process.