Wallpaper removal tips

Show of hands, who hates removing wallpaper?

Me! Me!

It obviously isn't anyone's first choice of activity, and I'm sure we all know someone who would never take it on. Whether they've dealt with wallpaper in the past or simply heard other people's horror stories, I know a surprising number of people who say they refuse to buy a house that has wallpaper.

I wouldn't go that far.

We have now removed wallpaper from four different rooms, and while I'd prefer to never do it again, I do think it's worth it for the right house. When I look at our before/after pictures, I'm so proud of what we did. And we did end up developing a pretty efficient system that made wallpaper removal slightly less torturous than your average bamboo shoot/fingernail scenario.

I'm no expert, and I can only give advice on what I've actually experienced, but we did learn a few things that I would think should be more helpful than starting with nothing.

Advice the first - Identify your wallpaper

Yes, there are different types of wallpaper, and some are more difficult to remove than others.

1. Single layer. I've heard of this legendary thing, but I'm not convinced it's real. Peel away a corner of your wallpaper. Does the whole shebang tear right off like contact paper? You lucky duck. Please, if you have this type of wallpaper, tell me your tale. (Oh, and you can pretty much ignore the rest of this blog post, because none of this mess applies to you.)
2. Vinyl. Vinyl wallpaper is a pain, but it isn't the worst. We had vinyl wallpaper in our kitchen and bathrooms. When you peel away a corner, the top layer comes off, leaving a thin paper backing attached to the wall. The remaining paper and glue aren't too terribly difficult to remove with a steamer.
   
3. Old school. There are no words to describe how deeply I feel for you. I really do. This is the worst kind of wallpaper, and our entire front hallway was covered with it. I'm not sure exactly what it's made of, but I can only guess that it's equal parts denim fiber, dissolvable tissue paper, and road tar.

Advice the second - Choose a method

There are so many options floating around out there. Here are just a few that we considered:

• liquid wallpaper remover
• fabric softener
• vinegar
• wallpaper steamer
• just paint over the damn stuff

We were lucky enough to have a friend who lent us a wallpaper steamer. They aren't terribly expensive, but we were spending a lot of money all around to update our house, so the notion of spending fifty bucks on something we'd probably never need again was not our favorite idea.

I'm a big fan of vinegar and use it to clean most things, so I would have given that method a try. If we'd had to buy our own wallpaper steamer, we probably would have tried a few of the home-remedy methods first. But then we probably would have sucked it up and just gotten the steamer.

Advice the third - Just suck it up and get the steamer

We used this one by Wagner.

Eh? Eh? Looks real nice, doesn't it?

Well, keep in mind that when you're using it, it actually looks more like this:

And this!

So here is the obligatory Public Service Announcement, for those of you who are borrowing a steamer from a friend:

The steamer will end up covered in disgusting wallpaper glue. Yes, you do have to clean it off before you give it back. Don't be that person.

Advice the fourth - Lots and lots of newspaper

You know what the best part about removing wallpaper was for us? We didn't have to worry about most of our flooring. We were lucky to buy a house that came with carpeting in the kitchen and bathrooms, and we knew we would be replacing every bit of it before we moved in. Suffice it to say, that carpeting was like a built-in dropcloth.

Still, your floors will get completely soaked with dripping water and glue from the steamer. I'm guessing if you're using a liquid wallpaper remover, the story is not much different.

Cover, cover, cover.

Cover your floors. Cover your baseboards. Cover your counters. Cover your tubs and cabinets and anything else you may be removing wallpaper above.

And for the love of Pete, cover your outlets, light switches, junction boxes, and anything electrical that may be on the wall. Turn the power off while you're at it.

I used plastic bags rather than newspaper to tape over my outlets. It gave me a little extra peace of mind knowing that the thing I was using to cover the electrical wires could not be soaked through.

You may be a little cocky at first. You may think that you will be able to keep control over it. But believe me, it will control you. I do not exaggerate when I tell you that steaming off wallpaper glue is a hot, drippy mess. You have been warned.

Advice the fifth - Skip the PaperTiger

You may not have a choice. If you have the old school tar wallpaper, you may not be able to steam or soak it off without scoring the wallpaper first. You may need to get one of these little plastic scoring devils.

But see if you can get by without it first.

A PaperTiger is this little plastic... THING that you run all over the wall to score some shallow holes in the wallpaper. The holes then allow the steam or liquid wallpaper remover to penetrate the wallpaper and soften the glue that's underneath, enabling the wallpaper to peel right off.

 Yeeeeah, I'm not buying it.

Well, more accurately, we did buy it. We bought two. But I'm not convinced they did anything.

My husband is a rules guy. He loves following instructions to the letter. So the first thing he did with our old school wallpaper in the front hallway was run the scorer over all of it. No, we did not attempt to remove this wallpaper without scoring it first. So I don't know if it would have worked or not.

My advice? Do what we say, not what we do. Try to remove your wallpaper without the scorer first. Here's why.

The damn scoring blades kept falling apart!

I'm not sure if there's another brand besides this PaperTiger one--if so, I recommend you get the other brand. These scoring blades do not stop falling off, and it was a huge pain in the butt to keep stopping and reattaching them every couple of minutes. What a waste of $16.

Luckily, by the time we finished removing the old school wallpaper in the front hallway and had made our way to the vinyl wallpaper in the kitchen and bathrooms, we decided to try removing the wallpaper using only the steamer. We found that in the kitchen and bathrooms, we didn't need to score the wallpaper first.

So try it. If you can get by without scoring, I recommend not wasting your money. Don't buy it unless you really need it.

Advice the sixth - Don't just paint over the damn stuff

If you're at all like me, after the first couple of 12-hour days you spend dripping with sweat and wallpaper glue, only to realize you're just halfway done with the first room, you will inevitably reach a point where you start to question the point. Why are you doing this? Would it really be so bad, you wonder, to just pretend you didn't see that there was wallpaper? To just skip this pesky removal step and grab that roller?

YES! It would be terrible. Do not do that.

You know what the right thing to do is.

Do it the right way once, and you will never have to worry about it again. It will be worth it. I promise.

Advice the additional

A few other quick tips as you prepare to strip your walls.

• Your walls will likely get damaged, whether by the steam, the moisture, or the scraping tool. Or maybe some combo of the three. Don't panic. You can patch it up later with spackle, sand it down, and be good to go. After a coat of primer and some paint, it will look good as new. If the scraper is consistently being too hard on your walls, try gently wiping the glue away with a sponge instead of scraping it.

• Get a bucket. Or two. You'll notice in a few of my pictures, the head of the steamer is facing downward on top of a bucket. When you use the steamer, water is constantly pooling inside, waiting to drip out. Any time I put the steamer head down, I put it on top of the bucket. Just trust me on that.

• Get a garbage can. Or two. I used a lot of newspaper, a lot of painter's tape, and a lot of paper towels. Are there more eco-friendly ways to avoid generating a lot of waste when you remove your wallpaper? Possibly. Can you pull it off without creating a big mess? You let me know.

• Make sure said bucket and garbage can are within reach at all times. My rhythm with wallpaper removal became a symphony of steam, tear, toss, steam, tear, toss, steam, scrape, wipe, toss. The steamer, scraper, sponge, bucket, and garbage can were my orchestra, and I was the gluey, disgusting conductor.

• This may go without saying, but wear old clothes. This is not like painting, where if you're really good it's possible to finish the walls without getting it all over yourself. It's inevitable that your blue jeans will magically morph into what my husband and I affectionately referred to as "glue jeans." Plus side, you'll never need to wonder which clothes are ratty enough to use for painting or yard work ever again. There will be no question.

• Be patient.

• Don't stop and take inventory of your progress too often. You'll get depressed. Seriously. If you want some bad advice, look at the size of the wall you are about to start working on. Now look at the size of the steamer. Now calculate the number of times you will have to press that steamer against the wall in order to cover the entire wall. Now multiply that number by three. This is the minimum number of passes you will have to make with the steamer to tear down all the paper and glue. Discouraged yet?

• It really does go faster than you think.