Mobile Home Vinyl Covered Panels

Vinyl covered drywall is a real problem in newer mobile homes.  The patterns used are always carefully chosen and look wonderful at first.  However, as time goes by popular colors changes, walls get damaged and everyone gets sick of the same old thing.

Unfortunately, the factories change their panel styles frequently, use up all their stock, and move on to the next.  There is NO way to get matching panel for a home more than a year or so old. 

Fine you say, I'll just take a panel out of a closet where it doesn't show and use that. It sounds like a plan, but there isn't all that much panel on the closet walls and removing it without breaking it is almost impossible.  I have seen it tried.  The panels are both glued and stapled to the studs.

I have been in homes where the owners painted these vinyl coated panels with regular latex paint.  It peels off in sheets!  I am told there are primers available that will prepare the walls so paint will hold; I have not tried them myself. 

I am am working on a project to describe and photograph a procedure for texture coating these walls.