My wife and I are having our first and wanted to put up a wallpaper wall boarder about 35-40" off the floor onto painted knock-down textured walls. Can I do this without smoothing the walls? Should I sand smooth and primer? Just add a skim later to smooth the finish then primer?

Ideas???

I have seen borders added to the textured wall without doing anything to the wall. I do not know how long this will last however. I also saw one where a man popped 2 lines around the wall and by taking a putty knife and removing the texture he could put up the border. Anyway you go at it it will be a tough risky situation as to its endurance. We have papered a bedroom right over the walls that had a sandy texture added. this was not a knock down texture. But it does look great and is lasting as it should.

What I am planning to do is to tape my area on the wall where I want the boarder, then I was planning to put a skim layer to smooth out the wall in that section only. Then primer and paint my wall the blue on bottom and green on top. Then lastly add the boarder to my wall.

Any comments on my plan?

Run the masking tape along the bottom of where the border is going to be. Then take a palm sander and run it over the exposed area to knock down the texture. Once that is done a skim coat of spackle can be done if its still rough a bit.
Be sure however to prime paint a good coat before you put the border up. Otherwise your future teenage child may not like the look of teadybears as a border. It will be very hard to remove later.