tips for removing wallpaper?

[snoopy5386]

I am looking for your best tips for removing wallpaper. We are moving into a home that has tons of wallpaper in it that I am guesstimating to be between 40-50 years old!! It is in the kitchen (including the ceiling!), both baths, the entryway and hallway, not to mention some random borders in the bedrooms. We have a 1 year old so we would prefer less toxic methods.
Thanks!

[mightymoo]

Yup, vinegar works just as well as the wallpaper remover. Maybe about 1 part vinegar to 8 water. Some wallpaper is easy to remove, depending on the glue and type of wallpaper and whether the surface underneath was painted enough. I've used it to remove both easy and hard wallpaper. It's not like it just helps hard wallpaper peel right off, but we literally did a test on the hard wallpaper that was put on the wall over just one coat of primer 30 years ago - sprayed the wall with both the chemical stuff and the vinegar and vinegar worked just as well as the chemical. So I'm saying if you try vinegar and it isn't work well, the chemical stuff wouldn't be any better.

Not to mention, when you are spraying that stuff it gets all in the air and you are breathing it in - I much prefer breathing in vinegar!

I usually spray a portion of the wall, let it soak a minute or two, then scrape - I get into a groove where I spray like Area 2, Scrape area 1, then spray area 3 and scrape area 2, so I let it soak a little bit, which seems to help.

I also found those scrapers designed for scraping wallpaper you can get at home improvement stores - they have kinda a knob on the top and a flat blade, make it easier to scrape the wallpaper without gouging the wall than it is with a putty knife

Good luck - removing wallpaper sucks!

[Starr]

A steamer also works very well.

[AlbertaJes]

i use 1 part liquid fabric softener to 8 parts water. Spray on, let it sit for a minute, and it literally peels right off.

[mightymoo]

Originally Posted by AlbertaJes

i use 1 part liquid fabric softener to 8 parts water. Spray on, let it sit for a minute, and it literally peels right off.

Oh, I should mention we tried fabric softener in our test too, I forgot - also didn't do any better than vinegar on our hard to peel wallpaper, and I hated breathing in the mist of it.

[Kerlowyn]

We bought a house last year, and all the rooms are/were wallpapered. I tried everything!!
The easiest, fastest and most efficient removal method was to rent one of those big commercial wallpaper removal steamers. I think was about $15 a day to rent.

[snoopy5386]

where do you rent a steamer from? When you all say spray the wallpaper, do you mean just with a regular sprayer type bottle? like a windex bottle or a febreze bottle? or are you spraying with something else?

[mightymoo]

Originally Posted by snoopy5386

where do you rent a steamer from? When you all say spray the wallpaper, do you mean just with a regular sprayer type bottle? like a windex bottle or a febreze bottle? or are you spraying with something else?

yeah, just a windex type bottle. I have some generic ones I bought at home depot a long time ago.

I've found the paper sometimes peels into two parts like a front and back layer - the front comes off easily in big strips, then I need to wet it to get the back off, I don't try to scrape it all off at once if it does that.

I'm sure you can rent a steamer at a home improvement store like home depot (they rent tools) or a tool rental place like taylor rental. I'll have to try that the next time I have wallpaper to remove.

[lindberg99]

With that much wallpaper to remove, I would just buy a steamer. I looked into renting one and it was $24 a day. I went to Lowe's and bought a Wagner one for $50 and you could get the deluxe one for about $100 that you could also use to clean floors, etc. And also get a Zinsser Paper Tiger, it is used to score the wallpaper so the steam can penetrate. And a scraper. The Zinsser Paper Scraper is great.

What kind of wallpaper is on the ceiling?? Is it a pattern or what? Why would someone want to paper the ceiling anyway?

Good luck, it sounds like you have quite a job ahead of you!

[snoopy5386]

the ceiling is a plaid pattern, it is from the 60s, it is a brown, green and orange stripe pattern. It is hideous. The paper in the rest of the house is equally hideous.

[sunnysideup]

Check into renting a steamer from a hardware store. The one we rented was very industrial, bigger reservoir, more steam, much better than buying a cheap one.

[Mallori]

How easily the wallpaper comes off is greatly dependant upon how well the walls were primed before applying the wallpaper.

I can tell you that in my experience, peeling off the top plastic-y layer and then scraping the sticky layer off has been adequate, using nothing but water. But I haven't dealt with something that old, either.

See if you can look up how they did it that far back in day. Or just try a spot and go for it. That's pretty much what you're in for anyway.

Make sure you take LOTS of pictures, that'd make an excellent before/after scrapbook.

[lindberg99]

Originally Posted by snoopy5386

the ceiling is a plaid pattern, it is from the 60s, it is a brown, green and orange stripe pattern. It is hideous. The paper in the rest of the house is equally hideous.

OH, you have to post a picture of that. A plaid ceiling?? Are the ceilings done everywhere or just in one room (hopefully!)??

[AuntLavender]

Truer words were never spoken!!!

Originally Posted by Mallori

How easily the wallpaper comes off is greatly dependant upon how well the walls were primed before applying the wallpaper.

I can tell you that in my experience, peeling off the top plastic-y layer and then scraping the sticky layer off has been adequate, using nothing but water. But I haven't dealt with something that old, either.

My house was built in 1981. There is wallpaper covering all the walls in both bathrooms, the foyer, the kitchen, and the master bedroom!

The wallpaper was put on BARE DRYWALL!!!!!!!!! Yikes!

I used nothing but plain water and a sponge and a putty knife and 2 children helpers! LOL! Start by peeling up a corner no matter how small and wet it and go from there. Use a putty knife to scrape off the second layer (the top layer tends to come off first).

Best wishes. It's hard work but doable.

Sincerely,
Debra, homeschooling mom of 4 ages 10(AS), 9, 7, and 4 (Apraxia, Dysarthria, HFA?)

[snoopy5386]

here are some photos. You can sort of see the plaid on the ceiling, the kitchen has a stepdown ceiling, but it is on the whole thing.
http://tinyurl.com/28vq96
http://tinyurl.com/yr8nda
http://tinyurl.com/2gc5d2

[2busy2clean]

What were they thinking??????????
lol! Are you in Utah -- that's the only state that I know of where they think it is normal to wallpaper the ceiling. btdt, never again.
The bright side is, you don't have 40 years of lead paint to deal with.
If the wall board is plaster and lathe and the plaster was done well, the wall paper should come down easily.
Happy scrapping!!

[ItyBty]

Originally Posted by snoopy5386

here are some photos. You can sort of see the plaid on the ceiling, the kitchen has a stepdown ceiling, but it is on the whole thing.
http://tinyurl.com/28vq96
http://tinyurl.com/yr8nda
http://tinyurl.com/2gc5d2

Wow, thats um.. festive. If there is only one layer, maybe 2, just try the vinegar or the steamer. The house doesn't look too terribly old, so it should be relatively modern wallpaper. Some of the rooms on our house (built in 1910) had some 20+ layers of wallpaper, and after the first room that took weeks to do we just removed the rest of the walls and put up new sheetrock.

[lindberg99]

Wow, very bright!!

The wood floor looks really nice and the trim looks like it was freshly painted. It's going to look great once you get the paper down! Good luck!! What color are you going to paint the kitchen??

[Mallori]

OMG, that's the same linoleum I just ripped out of my kitchen a couple months ago!

You know, the wallpaper is horrid, i'm not gonna lie to ya, but once you get that job tackled, with the right new paint, you're gonna have a nice looking house!

[KnockedUpButtercup]

Wow, how...er, cheery! The bathroom was my personal favorite...we had two of those hanging ball-on-a-chain lights in ours, too. My best friend called them the "testicle lights."

I like the advice you've gotten on scoring and steam. I was up past midnight removing wallpaper myself (hideous...late 80's watermelon slices on a white background) from my laundry room. I scored it using the "paper tiger" and then steamed it really well.

My mom gave me the steamer...it's one of those home steam-cleaning things she bought for herself, but it's too heavy for her to use. I highly recommend steam.

Cute house!

Holly