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Removing Wallpaper Guide

Just bought a house? Retro wall paper everywhere?! Here is a simple guide on how to remove the wall paper from your home. Good luck!

REMOVAL METHOD 1

The 1st method is using a wallpaper steamer, a piece of equipment that can be rented. It send steam through a hose to a flat metal plate similar to an iron. Pressing this plate on the wall forces steam into the wallpaper, which softens the paper and paste. This allows you to strip the paper with a putty knife.

This method harkens to the days of solid plaster walls, still in abundance in older homes but a relative rarity in the last 20 - 30 years. Unfortunately, aggressive steaming can damage paper-faced wallboards, especially if the wallboard wasn't fully sealed prior to wallpapering. In new construction, walls that are going to be prepared are often not primed with paint, but just coated with sizing. The sizing will seal enough to allow the wallpaper to stick, but offers little protection to the walls otherwise.

REMOVAL METHOD 2

The 2nd method involves the use of a chemical agent that is added to hot water. This chemical is an enzyme that soaks into the paper and dissolves the paste. It takes a bit longer than the steamer, but does a good job and is less damaging to the walls. The trick is to allow the chemicalto do it's work and not rush into scraping too soon. The paper should be kept wet with the chemical until the paper is loose enough to scape off easily. The wallpaper stripper is applied with a sprayer, either a hand-held trigger spray type for very small jobs or a pump type pressurized garden sprayer for entire rooms. Cover the floors with plastic tarps under newspapers to absorb the excess spray and collect the old paper. As waste accumilates, throw away a few layers of newspaper and put additional paper on the tarps.

REMOVAL METHOD 3

To remove strippable paper or any paper backing that remains after dry-stripping a peelable papers decorative layer, turn first to warm water and wallpaper removal solvent. Soak the surface with a wallpaper remover solution. Although a spray bottle works, the most effective way to get the solution on the wall and not all over the floor is to use a paint roller or a spray bottle. Then scrape the sodden paper off with a wide tapping knife or a wallpaper scrapper.

Don't wet a large area that you can't scrape off within about 15 minutes. You shouldn't let water soak into the drywall for longer than that, or it may cause unnecessary damage. Usually you can wet about a 3-foot wide, floor to ceiling section at a time. Scrape off the wet wallpaper and let it fall to the floor. The canvas drop cloth or towels that you put down absorbs most of the dripping solution. If the wallpaper is nonporous, you must roughen or perforate the surface so that the remover solution can penetrate and dissolve the adhesive. To roughen the surface, use coarse sandpaper on either a pad sander or a hand-sanding block. You can also use a great commercial tool called a Paper Tiger, or another peforating tool devised for use on wallpaper applied all over drywall. Rounded edges on these tools help ensure that you don't cause damage that may require subsequent repair. Don't use the scrpaer after the drywall is wet; you may damage the drywall. If you're sucessful in using the soak-and-scrape approach, you can finish up the job. If not, it's time to pull out the big gun: a wallpaper steamer.

HELPFUL HINTS

If the original paper is a non-porous vinyl, you may have to rip the vinyl face from the wall before using any removal method, because neither the steam or the chemical stripper will easily penetrate the vinyl. If the vinyl face is not easily pulled off, don't panic! You can make small porforations in the vinyl to allow the steam or chemical to pass through. There are two ways to accomplish this neatly and with minimal wall damage. The first is to use the commercial tool Paper Tiger. Simply rolling the Paper Tiger over the wall causes a small roller with pin-like protrusions to perforate the surface of the paper, leaving the wall underneath undamaged.

If you are going to paper again, your prep is almost done. Just give the walls a light sanding to remove any roughness and clean up all the dust before beginning the wallpaper process.

If you are going to paint, prime the walls with one coat of sealing/stain killing oil-based primer. You may have to sand again after this prime coat. The roughness is more paste being lifted by the primer. If you don't sand it off and then coat with a latex paint, it will be difficult or impossible for you to remove the roughness later!

After the primer is fully dry, you can sand it, clean up all the dust and then put 1 or 2 coats of any paint your heart desires.

                                                                              HAVE FUN & GOOD LUCK!