I decided to finally re-do the kid's bathroom after finding a great bargain at a yard sale for a bathroom set. The bathroom had really ugly wallpaper and border on the wall. It was stuck on there good and tight - 2 layers in fact!
Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.
I put up brown paper wallpaper several years ago. I am trying to take it down now and it seems impossible. I have tried steam, fabric softener diluted with water, and lots of elbow grease.
Nothing is working. Any suggestions? I believe I used glue and polyurethane to put it up.The easiest way to do this is to remove the top layer of the wallpaper and leave the backing on the wall. Use a puddy knife to lift up a corner of the wallpaper and then start to pull it off the wall. The glue and backing will stay stuck to the wall. You may not get all the paper off the wall but this is OK. Now tape off the baseboard and put down plastic on the floor. You will now need to soak the walls with a lot of water to remove the glue from the wall.
You will need to scrape it off the walls.Steel wool will do to.Wash off the glue and sand it off.Switch back and forth washing and sanding.It is not easy to get off it will take alot of scrubbing.
Is possible to remove wallpaper that has been put on over vinyl gypsum board so I can paint the vinyl board and what issues will I be facing?
I would put slits in the wallpaper with a razor blade. Then I would soak the wallpaper with hot water.
I have just purchased a manufactured home that has pre-printed drywall that was wallpapered over and is all wrinkled. I need to paint and remove wallpaper without destroying the drywall.
The paper is glued on. Can someone please help! Thank you.What is the best way to take off very old wallpaper? It is the paper thin kind used back over 30-40 yrs ago. My house is over 165 yrs old and every room has that crappy wallpaper. I am taking it down. In some places there is like 3 layers of it.
By tara73 from East Brunswick, NJ
I believe that there is a product on the market for removing it; for stripping old wallpaper. Think I saw it one time someplace. Why not google it?
You can buy a wallpaper scraper at most any hardware store. This lifts most of the paper from the walls no matter how thick. However, I would scrub the walls down after paper is removed to get the glue off. TSP is a product that is good for removing leftover residue and can be purchased at Lowe's I know. It has to be rinsed off after applied and allow walls to dry before priming/painting.
Ive tried the softener and water trick but all it does is make the paper even harder to remove..lol..plus it has a wall paper paper behind it that they used to use to make walls "flat" if they weren't smooth. Basically it was "paper" to put on the wall before you put the wall paper actually up..I believe it was also put up with "wheat paste" not glue..crazy house..
Go buy an item called "Paper Tiger". It scores your wallpaper with tiny little holes so you can get the water and softener mixture behind it. It is a round tool with wheels that you run over the wallpaper. If you have a 165 year old house, chances are it has a plastered wall.
I have tried the scoring trick and spraying softener on wall paper. Both will work but when I had to remove wallpaper from the 1950s, I used a steamer that was meant for removing wallpaper. I liked being able to put stream directly on the wallpaper and once it was soaked, it was very easy to remove.
Good luck!
Wall paper from 30 or 40 years ago, is still only 1970, when most people used prepasted wallpaper, very similar to what is available today. However, if your house is over 100 years old, some of those layers may have been from 1930's and 40's or even before, and they would most definitely have used a wheat or other type of paste that is different in compostion from glue nowadays. You might want to google for information on historic renovations to see if there is a technique for really old wallpaper. I would suggest a steamer.
You should be very cautious about removing paper in a home of that age. Walls were made differently and you may be getting into a very expensive project such as hanging wall board over lath wood and uneven plaster. Good luck.
You can use a sprayer and add fabric softener to it, spray every inch and wait for it to loosen.
We went faster, took a new garden weed sprayer, filled it up with about 1 gallon mixture of FS, warm water and did it.
Remember, most of the houses back then have slate plastered walls. We were fortunate enough to have solid plaster over them. I re-papered with oil cloth quality paper cause that was what was going to hold the house together once the old stuff was not there when peeled off. I did not have to take it off my large rooms (dining/living) but did the heavy treatment back. Has saved us having to do things when the house has shifted. My house is 100 years old. We lived in another house where the renters had removed most of the layers, thank heavens. That was many weeks of work.
Make sure you wear masks and gloves. The 'stuff' riding on this paper is for sure mold spored from all the years, much less many other things.
All the time I had worked on this old house, we had pneumonia, etc all the time. Yep, too late with the advice of the masks. For a few cents, it is your health.
We have lived here ten years and the blue cow wallpaper was here when we bought the house. It was past time to say goodbye to the cows. I started peeling the wallpaper off my kitchen and it peeled off easily in large pieces. Once all the cows were gone most areas are still covered with a very thin yellowish paper (as thin as tissue paper) all over the walls. I can peel small pieces off in some areas, but most areas seem to be stuck on good. What is the next way to remove this? I appreciate any and all info that can help me in this project.
By Shell S
How much water to how much softener do I use for wall paper removal?
By sheila from Virginia Beach, VA
I need to give my kitchen a new look, but my kitchen has about 2-3 different wallpapers on it. My friend came to help me remove it and when I came back from getting some lunch my friend had a layer of mud on 90% of the kitchen. What do I do?
By Matt
How do I remove 15 year old wallpaper border? I tried the commercial presoak gel, but it is brutally slow to peel off. I tried scoring the paper with a sharp knife as recommended, but it doesn't help much.
By Pat M
How do you remove wallpaper border?
By CORKY WOLF
I attempted to remove a wallpaper border that was applied to drywall that only had a thin coat of paint on it. The drywall was peeling off with the border in small pieces so I ended up bordering over that border and now 5 years later I really want it off.
I now have to remove two borders and I am not looking forward to it! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I tried all of the home remedies, steamer, and store bought products when trying to remove the first border, so maybe I should just leave it and cover it with some sort of wood trim that I can paint. Cost is a major issue so crown molding is not an option as it's a very large kitchen. Any suggestions? Thanks.
By Chris from Ontario
