Hey
Tried to include everything in one headline...
In our 70s house, the laundry room is in the basement, decorated with tight wallpapers, like a thin vinyl sheet on the walls and linoleum on the floor.
I've removed all the wallpaper now, and behind it are gypsum boards on 3 of the walls. One wall faces the outside world, I believe it has drainage gravel, asphalt, concrete, insulation, plastic, then gypsum from the outside in, but I could be wrong. On the other interior walls, there are only gypsum boards, and the last wall is concrete with plaster?! It looks fine everywhere except where the exterior wall meets the inner concrete wall; there it looks like there was a moisture damage before. It might have been old from when the downspout went straight into the ground there, it's directed outward now. The old moisture damage was behind the vinyl on the wall, it was probably a bit tight there. Now the sheet is gone, and I'll have a dehumidifier in the laundry room, partly to dry the laundry but also because I think it's good for the basement room.. what do you think?
Ideally, I would want to apply gypsum plaster directly onto the walls and then paint white.
Can you use gypsum in a basement laundry room?
Do I need a moisture barrier or primer? Does it work without trapping moisture in the walls, isn't it true that it's best if the walls can breathe? Gypsum without a moisture barrier and with some good permeable paint should be best, right?
