Tuesday, September 22, 2009

How to remove wallpaper -- tutorial

We bought our house a little over 2 years ago and while it was/is a great house, it needed a LOT of cosmetic work done. One of the cheapest ways to give a room (or an entire home) a facelift is to paint. This is a pretty easy way to spruce anything up. If wallpaper is part of the mix, then the job becomes much bigger. Here is a tutorial on how to successfully remove wallpaper and wallpaper glue from your walls in preparation to paint them.

For normal wallpaper removal, you would get the wallpaper good and wet and let it sit for a few minutes. I like to use a spray bottle full of hot water. After letting it sit for a few minutes, you can usually peel the wallpaper off in sheets. Make sure to remove any outlet or switch plates first. If there is any wallpaper pieces left on the wall, just spray them again and they should come right off. You can buy a wallpaper perforator that punctures the wallpaper and allows the water to get under the wallpaper better. There are several different kinds. I have used these before and I don't really feel like they help that much. You have to REALLY perforate the wallpaper and push fairly hard. There is also a type of liquid chemical that is supposed to help remove wallpaper easily. It is called DIF and I have used it. Again, I didn't feel like it made that much of a difference and with 4 small children in the home, I would rather just use water.

I broke this up into smaller videos so you can easily go to the part you are interested in instead of having to watch all of it.


This is what my dining area looked like when we moved in. The curtains matched perfectly to the wallpaper which I thought was really weird, but maybe that's what was popular 30ish years ago. It wasn't until I started to take it down that I realized that the wallpaper was actually fabric!

Once the wallpaper is down, there is usually glue left on the wall. It has to be removed before you paint. Here is a description of 2 different ways of removing the glue from the walls in preparation for painting.

This is how to remove the glue using a sponge and some soapy water. It is definitely work, but it is VERY effective.


This is how to remove the glue using an electric sander. There are 2 videos--one to show how to use the sander and one to explain what to do when you are done sanding.

That's it! Once I get this room done, I will post pictures. Let me know if you have any questions. pumpkinpatchdesigns@hotmail.com.

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