apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I've removed wallpaper several times, and it can be a nightmare if the wall wasn't prepped properly before the wallpaper was applied.

In our master bath, we tried scoring the wallpaper, which damaged the drywall and just made the wallpaper come off in tiny bits. We rented a steamer at one point, which just saturated the drywall (where it was damaged by the scoring). I think we had two layers of paper, with Kilz and paint over it.

In our master bedroom, we scraped layer after layer (with paint and primer in between), using a 2" razor blade three times in a 15x15' room. At this point, we used hot water and fabric softener in a weed sprayer, which worked pretty well (the water has to be HOT).

We had grasscloth in our dining room that removed fairly easily in sheets but left a paper backing behind. It came off easily after being saturated in hot water mixed with fabric softener.

And finally, in our second bath, the drywall came off the wall dry in big sheets, leaving the paper backing, which we just wet down with the fabric softener solution and peeled off easily.

I hate, hate, hate wallpaper. But I hate people that paint over wallpaper even more... And I have three bathrooms in our current house that are going to need to have the wallpaper removed... At least it appears to be only one layer.

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where can i get a men's version of that indiana teeshirt?

With paper covered in paint, etc., there's not much I can tell you. However, in removing just one layer of wallpaper, without all the complications, I've had good experiences with a wallpaper scorer like this one. It just makes a bunch of tiny slits in the wallpaper, which allows your remover solution to soak in really well underneath. According to this website, it's not supposed to put holes in your drywall, and it didn't for me, but in my experience, all bets are off when you're dealing with paper that's been painted. I've dealt with a project like that once, and my instinct is to tell you to remove it with a sledgehammer and just get some new drywall ...

My parent's house had HORRIBLE wallpaper and it was such a pain to get off the wall. The only thing that worked and the only thing I've used since is Vinegar and Water!!! Mix about half and half or 2 parts vinegar 1 part water in a spray bottle, spray on the wallpaper (scoring helps penetration) and let it sit for about 5 minutes. Come back and scrap it off. It's safe, no steaming no chemicals and most importantly it WORKS!

I agree with tearing out the drywall if you find you're dealing with multiple layers of paint and wallpaper. It's just easier and less time consuming. We plan to do that with our new master bath (because we'll be gutting it anyway), but we're hoping the others are a little more cooperative.

Whether you use vinegar or fabric softener, if you're covering a large area, a pump garden sprayer is a lifesaver. (And it works for spraying the ceiling and removing the popcorn too.)

My wife and I (she was the pro) removed quite a bit of a sinlge layer of paper that seemed to be over-glued to the wall, (previous owner's diy job gone wrong, I don't know why anyone would want wallpaper that looked like stones on a castle).
We used a Paper Tiger to score the paper and a $25 (craigslist) steamer, and then hours of scrapping.
We had to sand off some of the remaining glue and paper, but be careful not to damage the drywall paper.

Our lessons learned:
- be patient, once you get a sheet started work with it, rather than ripping it to pieces.
- cover the floor, we had glue drops stuck to the floor all over the place, and it gets nasty.
- Don't use Dif - this stuff is nasty, made a big mess, and didn't work as well as the steamer. Just buy the $50 plastic steamer, or used if you can, it's worth it.

When we bought our house every room was covered in some variation of old mustard colored wallpaper. We have since learned that there are at least 2 other layers under that one eventually arriving at old horse-hair plaster. I have become somewhat of an expert having completed the dining room, living room, bathroom and kitchen which are all now down to the plaster. Initially we tried a chemical remover which we sprayed on and then scraped but if you have multiple layers this ends up being more trouble than it is worth. Once it dries it makes the under layers doubley hard to get off. I have read of lots of different methods - vinegar, fabric softner, (neither of which I tried) etc. - but the best tool that I have found, knowing that there are more layers underneath, is the steamer - steam the section until it is saturated and then use a wide putty knife to scrape up and underneath the paper - start at the bottom (otherwise you end up kneeling in the soggy sticky paper that you have already scraped at the top) and clean up as you go - this makes a big difference. If I can i try to put the chunks of paper that I scrape off directly into the trash bag. It might make it go a little slower but it makes the end so much better because you have already taken care of most of it.

i cover the floor with a disposable plastic drop cloth (which I will reuse until all of the walls are done and then dispose of) and some old bath towels to catch any of the extra drips from the steamer - i just chuck them in the washer when i have finished a big section or a room and start again with them.

I could go on and on and have actually ended up with some pretty good short stories inspired by the wallpaper insanity that we have gone through over the past couple of years.

Good luck!

What ever you do - don't over-use the wall-paper scoring tool. If you do, your wallpaper will come off in tiny bits, instead of nice big pieces.

I had to learn this the hard way. I used Dif, scoring tool, and the paper scraper. I severely over scored the paper, and had to deal with wall paper confetti instead of easy sheet removal.

but what about the shirt?

Having removed wall paper in three extensively covered homes, the best method I found was ripping as much of the top layer off as possible (no not score) and then fill a spray bottle with fabric softener and hot water and spray away. Let it soak and minute or two and then scrape away. It somes off easily ... better than the steamer which I pain too much money for. Wash the walls after with TSP and then rinse with water before you paint.

The t-shirt looks like it's a Jones & Mitchell... I'm not sure I've seen a unisex/men's version. Company info: http://www.jonesmitchell.com/ and a profile: http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=719357

Give 'em a call... it's a cool tee. Go Hoosiers! (lame, but funny) Oh, and thanks everyone for the wallpaper tips! I recently discovered the previous owner of my house did the "I'll just paint over the kitchen wallpaper" thing... when I pulled off the painters' tape and half the wall came with it. Not amusing.

Steamers are not meant for drywall. (Thankfully I have plaster, in which the old nasty wallpaper came off like a dream).

For drywall, a paper tiger and a spray-on wallpaper removal gel. Tree-huggers can use a spray bottle of vinegar instead of the gel.

I did well with vinegar and hot water in a spray bottle, after pulling big sheets off first which left the paper backing. Then I sprayed, let it sit, scraped and sponged. I have plaster BTW.

antimatt-

My friend Sheri is the girl in the pic above with the cool tee. I emailed her to ask about the shirt, but I haven't heard back from her yet.

hey robinette, i'm on finally on it. you can get that shirt at tisbookiu.com and the green cuff is from Zalud.net. happy shopping!

Vinegar! I once helped a friend remove the 30-year-old foil wallpaper from her condo. We tried the scoring, the chemicals, and a steamer with no luck whatsoever, but once we tried the vinegar it just peeled right off. Now vinegar and hot water are my go-to wallpaper removal secret. It soaks through and releases the adhesive and then it peels away easily!