Natural way to strip wallpaper????

[mirpmama]

anyone know of a natural and convenient way to get wallpaper off of a wall??? we have some ideas, but would love to hear from someone who has had some success!! tia!

[crazy_eights]

I JUST did this this past weekend. We rented a steamer from Home Depot - $15 for four hours, $21/day. The wall paper we were removing was put up incorrectly (no sizing before the paper which makes it bind like concrete) so it was a huge amount of work. The basic process is you score the paper with a 'tiger claw' and then steam the heck out of it. Then you use a scrapper to scrape it off. If the paper was hung correctly it comes off quite easily. If it wasn't - well, you'll have a good amount of work ahead of you. Note that you might have to remove it in two layers - the vinyl layer and then the paper.

If the paper was hung proper, you can also peel off the vinyl layer and then spray the paper with a spray bottle that has water with a bit of white vinegar added. We stripped our boys' bedroom this way and it was not a bad way to go. However, tried it with the kitchen metioned above and it didn't do much!

Good luck.

[Annalisasmom]

When I removed wallpaper I actually used my clothes steamer but I didn't have much to remove... It worked great!

[mirpmama]

thanks so much!! it is a small room and some of it has already peeled off easily. i had thought of using our clothes steamer! and i thought of vinegar too (since it does everything else!), but $15.00 for the steamer sounds great!!!!!! thanks!

[hubris]

I tried the commercial gel stuff once, it didn't work any better than plain old water. So my advice: get one of those perforating thingies that you find in the wallpaper removal section, perforate the dickens out of the paper, then take a sponge and soak the paper with water. Peel off the paper.

Vinegar sounds like a good idea - would it affect the wall's ability to take paint later, though? Steamers are also great.

[AngelBee]

A bucket of hot water and a sponge. Score walls and wipe with saturated hot, wet sponge. Worked great to remove 4 layers of 40 years worth of wall paper!

[Wild Flowers]

Not that it is totally natural, but it helped us out, our wallpaper wasn't done quite right either and had some horribly freaky birds on it!!! We used hot water with fabric softner. It has something to do with lowering the surface tension of the water. Which makes me wonder if baking soda would do it? But it came right off.

[crazy_eights]

Originally Posted by funshine

Vinegar sounds like a good idea - would it affect the wall's ability to take paint later, though? Steamers are also great.

No, it doesn't affect the ability of the wall to take paint, but it is really important after you strip wall paper to do a light sanding (a 'scuffing') and then prime the walls before you paint. Otherwise your paint can crackle from paste residue cracking (yup, that is the voice of experience you hear there).

[Lli]

If you have a whole houseful of steaming ahead of you- or you don't think you'll be done in a day or two for whatever reason- you can buy a good steamer for about $50. (I look forward to the day that all the old wallpaper is gone and I can use the steamer for clothes.)

I wouldn't bother buying the tiger claw. I use an old 2 1/2" putty knife that has a very thin edge. When the steam doesn't do all of the work, I score the paper with the edge of the knife.