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It’s best to remove wallpaper rather than paint over it. You should only paint over wallpaper if removing it would damage the wall, the surface is relatively smooth, or there are minimal problem areas—such as slight peeling and lifted seams—that you can fix easily. Painting over wallpaper can save time, but it can create more problems if the wallpaper is in poor condition and you don’t properly prep the area for painting. Depending on the state of the wallpaper, color, and textures could show through, and moisture from the paint could loosen the adhesive, causing unsightly bubbling.

Whether you skim coat the entire wall or just a portion depends on the extent of the damage. If you only have small sections of gouges, a targeted skim coat will do the trick. However, if the surface feels uneven across larger areas, a full skim coat produces a smoother, more uniform result and helps prevent a patchy-looking paint finish.

Hiring a professional wallpaper hanger is usually a worthwhile idea because, while the application of wallpaper itself is easy, getting the finished product to look good is complicated and takes a lot of practice and patience. A professional wallpaper hanger will not only be able to hang your wallpaper seamlessly, but they will also get an even application of wallpaper paste to avoid bubbling and imperfections immediately and over time. Plus, they can provide their professional opinion on whether to remove or wallpaper over an existing layer of wallpaper.

You can often fix an air bubble by cutting a tiny hole in the bubble with a very sharp knife, using a glue syringe to inject some adhesive behind the bubbled portion of paper, and then using a wallpaper smoothing tool to push the bubble back onto the wall's surface.