Wallpaper Removal

Did you remove wallpaper on your own or did you hire someone? If you did it on your own, was it difficult?

Re: Wallpaper Removal

warm water and fabric softner in a spray bottle. works great. easy too.

Re: Wallpaper Removal

It reallly requires no special skill, just lots of patience... It falls under my category of "grunt work".

I've done it in my father's house, it's tedious and depending upon the condition of the walls, it "might" be worth it to just gut and resheetrock.

If you have multiple layers of wallpaper... in the house I grew up in my father found 7 you can also buy the thinner sheetrock and go right over the walls. I was a pre-teen and my dad believed in child labor so my brother and I scraped and scraped

And yes, buy a gallon of the store brand "pink farbric softener"... the cheap stuff... mix with the hottest water you can stand, wet paper thoroughly and scrape, scrape, scrape.

Good luck!

Re: Wallpaper Removal

In our kitchen we had to hire someone and they said it was the hardest job they ever had and they subbed it out to a specialist who only deals in difficult wallpaper removal. It seems that when the wallpaper was put up they didn't pretreat the sheetrock so the glue would not release. But that was really abnormal.

I've removed it in other houses myself and not had any problems. Just be sure to really score the paper well and use HOT water or the steamer.

Re: Wallpaper Removal

Re: Wallpaper Removal

I have removed more wallpaper in the last year than I ever thought I would in an entire lifetime. We had like 40 year old wallpaper and brand new, so I've done it on all types.

Here's what worked:
We peeled off the wallpaper first, leaving just the backing on the wall. Then, we used DIF in a spray bottle, then used a damp sponge to spread it evenly on the wall, waited two minutes, and it would almost always peel off in huge sections with little to no effort. For more stubborn spots, we'd used a paint scraper (don't know the technical term for it) to scrape the backing off. We had no luck with the water and fabric softener. We also had no luck with scouring the wallpaper first.

Re: Wallpaper Removal

my old coworker used vinegar...she said it worked great and everything came off super easy but it didnt smell super great.

so perhaps try the fabric softener way first!

i saw ppl on hgtv also use this tool to make little holes in the paper first so that might help but my coworker said for her they didnt even need to do that.

Re: Wallpaper Removal

I had someone do it. Worth every penny. My whole house was covered, including the light switch covers and ceilngs.

FM if you want the rec

Re: Wallpaper Removal

If you have a steamer, you can use that. Just water to the point of steaming and go over ther wall paper with it. Came off pretty easy, but so tedious.

Re: Wallpaper Removal

I just removed wallpaper yesterday using a mixture of hot water, vinegar and baking soda (2 cups hot water, 2 cups vinegar, 1 cup baking soda). We peeled off the top layer first, then spread the mixture on the backing with a sponge, let it sit for about 15 minutes, and then it came off pretty easily (some peeled off, some had to be scraped).

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DIF all the way. Every room in our house had it and we used it in every room so far.

Re: Wallpaper Removal

i tried to do this in my house. i got the tool to score the wallpaper , DIF, fabric softener, vinegar,,,,,you name it. i could not get if off and was getting very impatient.

therefore, i hired someone to do it.

Re: Wallpaper Removal

FABRIC SOFTENER and warm water works the best, I tried DIF, but this worked better. I used a Paper Tiger first to score the paper.

Re: Wallpaper Removal

We rented a machine from HD and used DIF on the hard spots. Luckily ours just peeled right off.

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it just depends on the type of glue that was used. the older - the harder to get off.


we had wallpaper that pealed right off, easily scraped off, scraped off with some effort and some that we needed to rent a steamer (which made impossible to remove paper come off right away)

Re: Wallpaper Removal

Mom swore by equal parts white vinegar and water in a spray bottle and it and it worked like a charm! Let it sit for a few moments to pentrate. Peeled straight off with a plastic spackle tool.

Message edited 7/17/2009 2:48:32 PM.

Re: Wallpaper Removal

I took off wallpaper what a nightmare. First I tried scoring it, and using that solution used in the store. A mess, and the fumes were . Then I used the steamer on a different section-worked better.

Then I figured out that if I just wet the paper with water (use a old wet facecloth) then scraped with a putty knife. The paper, then the glue after I re-wet the glue, came off the best. This was professionally done wallpaper and all it took was water in the end.