Post your wallpaper removal secrets here!

Gem11

Please post your successful wallpaper removal stories. I am going to redo my moms walls in her kitchen in a couple weeks and I need all the help I can get. I have never removed wallpaper (lucky me) and now I get to start. 

Also if you have any tips on after its removed what you did to prep it for primer and paint? TIA

Susie Derkins

I had it in 3 rooms, and used a steamer in all of them.  Some went really smoothly - particularly where the wallpaper was pretty thick.  Where the wallpaper was really thin and, well, papery, it shredded a lot and was a really frustrating endeavor.

After removing, I did a lot of spackling and sanding, lather, rinse, repeat.  More shredding --> more wall damage --> more rounds of spackling.  Then I primed and painted.

Gem11

Susie Derkins:

I had it in 3 rooms, and used a steamer in all of them.  Some went really smoothly - particularly where the wallpaper was pretty thick.  Where the wallpaper was really thin and, well, papery, it shredded a lot and was a really frustrating endeavor.

After removing, I did a lot of spackling and sanding, lather, rinse, repeat.  More shredding --> more wall damage --> more rounds of spackling.  Then I primed and painted.

Thanks Susie, I was wondering how long would you say it takes, from removal to ready to paint? Also did you rent a special steamer? 

 

Susie Derkins

I bought a steamer, since it was cheaper to buy than rent for 3 different rooms (that I did at different times).  It was maybe $45? 

How long it took totally varied.  The half bath was a DISASTER.  It took weeks of wall repair.  But that was really unusual.  There was water damage through the wallpaper, the wallpaper shredded particularly badly, etc.  On the other hand, the upstairs bath had really thick wallpaper that came right off in big chunks.  There was almost no wall damage, and it was ready to be primed the next day.

Catch23

CLose to 100% of our home was wallpapered when we moved in!  We had great success with a scorer and DIF.

GL!

TheWop

We also had great success with DIF and a putty knife. 

rcgreen

I am almost done removing it in my house. Even the easiest rooms sitll take a lot of time because I had to remove the top thick paper (most of that came off in huge pieces super fast), then remove the glued on backing (some came off in sheets, some was like torture. Then after that I still had to go over all of it with a scrubby sponge, then clean water. Some of the walls are ready to prime after just that, but others need a lot of spackling, sanding, etc.

I found DIF to be worthless in my one really hard room. The others came off fine with fabric softener in water and a putty knife. TSP was very helpful in cleaning the walls.

It's a lot of work, even for the easiest rooms.

Kernel14

Our house was also almost 100% wallpaper..including ceilings and pipes. I pretty much made it rain DIF everywhere (keep in mind we had really old, disgusting carpets that we didn't care about). I soaked the walls 3 times and then used a putty knife. That actually worked in most of the rooms where the wallpaper was super old.

There was one room where the wallpaper was new and it came off in teeny tiny pieces.

I'd actually advise against scoring the walls at first. If you have old paper that isn't on there very well, you might be able to tear it down in huge pieces. If you score it, you lose that option because now you've "torn" it into smaller pieces. Obviously if it doesn't come off in large sections, then scoring might work.

Lauree1183

I work for a painting company and when our painters remove wallpaper they wet the walls down with a bit of water and Tide mixture (use very little) and start scraping away.  

sierramist_03

Fabric softener and water mixture is what we alway use. My mom just took wallpaper down in her kitchen and she did it in one day by herself. When we did our bathroom it took a couple hours. You just want to make sure the paper is really soaked. 

Passanie

Dif and the scorer didn't do much for me, either.

We sprayed a combo of hot water and vinegar that worked well. A hair dryer added to the mix worked even better! (Though I wish I had tried a steamer, they sound like a good investment.)

I wish I had been a little bit better about prepping the walls. After I primed and painted I got some little bumps, presumably from either wallpaper glue or backing that I didn't get off. I sanded the affected area and repainted and it's been fine ever since. Kinda wish I had sanded before priming.

wealldeservepretty

my sister's entire HOUSE was wallpapered, and we did it all ourselves using DAWN and hot water mixed together!  We tried all the other chemical type stuff, and then someone told my sister about the dawn, and it worked a gazillion times better, and its only .99 a bottle!  Just put hot water in a spray bottle with the dawn and spray it over the scored paper.  Works better than anything else!  Good luck, I've been there!

aecubera

We used a cheap iron's vertical steam function to steam off the wallpaper itself (ruined the iron, but it was very effective), and then we used a vinegar/water mixture for the backing (a 50/50 blend, but you can play with it and see what works best).

 It took us a weekend to get the backing off for 2 bedrooms, 2 hallways, and a bathroom.  It took another week to patch and sand holes to prepare for priming.  FYI, we have plaster walls.

mamasally16

We just did 2 bathrooms and 1 room with a border last week. My advice, use a steamer. We had a $20 garment steamer that did the trick. We never had to score the walls because the steamer would lift the paper right off. We used DIF to get all the remaining glue off the walls. We also used a sponge with netting on it for all the remaining glue that couldn't be scraped off. It worked for some of the toughest spots, and you didn't run the risk of taking a chunk out of the wall like you do with scraping. Then we patched and sanded all of the spots, and today I'm finally ready to paint! Good luck, be patient and it will all come together.