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MATERIALS CHECKLIST |
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Wallpaper Remover (concentrate) |
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Spray Bottle |
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Dust Mask or Wallpaper Remover (semi-paste) |
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Paint Tray, Roller Handle, Sleeve |
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2" Paint Brush or Wallpaper Remover Steamer Cloth Gloves and 3", 6" putty knives |
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Sponge Sand Block |
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Rag |
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60 Grit Sandpaper |
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Newspaper, Drop Cloth, and Trash Bags |
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There are several scenarios for paper removal that may come up, based on what kind of wall covering is on the wall now.
Strippable Vinyl Wallpaper
This is the easiest wallpaper to remove.
- Lift up the corners with a small putty knife or your fingernail. The nice thing about this stuff is that it'll come off in large pieces or even entire sheets, with just some tugging.
- What's left is the dried glue residue on the wall. That should come off, too. It doesn't take much to get this off so I usually mix some wallpaper remover up in a spray bottle from the concentrate. Follow the instructions. Don the dust mask, as once you start spraying the mist stays in the air and can be pretty yucky on the throat and lungs. Place newspaper under where you are working. Spray a 3' x 3' section at a time, starting at the top of the wall (since gravity and the runoff will make the lower one next a bit easier). This can be a bit messy. Use the wider putty knife and it will easily scrape off the wall. As you go along the wall, use the rag and wipe excess residue off at the base molding as well as the corner by the ceiling.
- Once finished, let the walls dry. Take the sponge sanding block and then go over all the wall surfaces lightly, just to basically smooth out any unseen residue that dried. Now follow the repair walls steps, to fill any small or large holes and cracks in the walls, and then you're ready to prime, and paint.
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Paper-Backed Vinyl Wallpaper
- The vinyl front of the paper should come off easily, by peeling it by hand. The putty knife should help you lift this off.
- Now there will be the paper backing left on the wall, with the glue. This can also be removed by the wallpaper remover concentrate mixed in the spray bottle. However I discovered a couple of years ago the wallpaper remover gel at a home improvement store. It made the job so much less messy, and easier to execute! Pour some of the gel into a paint tray and begin rolling it on the wall. It will need to sit for just a bit, maybe ten minutes or so. (The longer it stays on the wall the better it works.) Since it dries a bit in patches as I wait for it to do it's work, I've found that two coats are usually necessary to do the trick. So I roll the blue gel on the wall and brush in perimeter of the wall.
- Roll on the second coat of gel wallpaper remover. I usually do the entire room and then double back and start over with the first wall. At this point the first coat will probably be absorbed into the paper backing and yet have loosened it nicely. The second coat will re-soak the paper, and so now I go section-by-section (about 4' x 4') and scrape the paper off.
- Once the walls are dry, sand the surfaces. Use the sponge sander and go over all the wall surfaces. You don't have to use that much elbow grease; you're basically just smoothing out the excess dried glue that didn't get removed. IF IT IS A REGULAR paper, then follow the paper-backed vinyl STEPS 2 - 4.
Vinyl-Coated Wallpaper
This is the hardest wallpaper to remove. You'll find that you can't peel the vinyl coating off, and neither can the wallpaper remover penetrate to loosen the paper. The paper, then the backing and glue residue still need to come off the wall, but you've got to get through that first layer with the solution in order for it to work. This can be done by "scoring" the surface either with the corner of the putty knife* or roughing up the front of the paper with 60 grit sandpaper. Then by coating, re-coating, scraping, etc., as in the removal above, you will eventually get it all off the walls.
* That scoring may leave you with some marks on the wall afterwards that will need to be spackled.
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 The Voice of Experience
How about a wall paper steamer? You know, those things you rent that utilize the steam from heated water to lift the paper off? My sister and I wanted to get some really, really old paper off the livingroom walls in her turn-of-the-century Victorian house. We began trying to wet it with wallpaper remover, but even after allowing two coats to soak thoroughly the paper wasn't coming off very well. It seemed as if the paper had been hung directly over the original plaster walls (there on some exposed spots was the paper hanger's pencil marks!).
I was really just visiting her and we both wanted to finish this project up so we could do other things that day, so we decided to rent a wallpaper steamer. It was about $25 for the day. They generally come in the following components: the container that get's filled up with water and boils it, a hose which connects to this, and then two attachments: the main one is about 5" x 10" and the smaller one is about 2" x 10". Both of the attachments have little holes in the underside of them which sit over the wallpaper on the wall. Follow the directions from the rental place. But basically we filled up the container with hot water and waited for it to boil. Once it was nice and hot a little indicator on the outside told us that it was ready, and I hooked up the hose and the larger attachment. Kathy and I worked together: I held the attachment on a section of wall for 20 seconds or so and then kept moving on, as I did so Kathy would scrape off the steamed section. As long as you keep a drop cloth at the foot of the wall that you're working on, you should be able to contain the excess water pretty well, and this wallpaper steamer will be an immense help. |
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