Best way to remove wallpaper??? Any suggestions?

[BC]

The wall was primed before this paper went up, but is still wanting to tear before it completely separates from the wall. What is the best product you have found to remove paper?

 

[Papa Deuce]

I'm no help, but let me say, "May God Be With You"...

I had to take wallpaper down from an entire house except the basement... Took me 2 months, working a couple of hours a day....

Good luck!

 

[JoiseyMom]

You need to buy DIF. Remember the Karate kid movie??? Wax on wax off!! Your arms are gonna get a work out scrubbin!!

 

[mdrob214]

Has it been up forever? I have removed paper by filling a spray bottle 2-1 water/fabric softener(downey) and saturating sections of the wall. The paper just peeled off. but it wasn't up there but for a few years (5-6 maybe?) I have heard it also works with straight water. It's cheap so worth a try.

 

[famofsix]

vinegar and warm water work in a spray bottle and if you have one of those round tools with a blade it helps to seperate the paper from the wall. And a big scraper. Muscles help too.

yup the round thingie is a scorer

 

[BC]

It has been up about 10 yrs, so I may have a job on my hands. I had been told if you primed it first, it would peel right off! NOT!!

 

[JoiseyMom]

The problem isn't taking off the paper, it's getting the glue off the wall. You need DIF. My brother has been in the painting business for years. Go into any paint store and they will tell you DIF. And lots of elbow grease.

 

[BC]

Do you just spray it on and wait and it should peel off or what?

 

[HelenePA]

get one of those wallpaper scorers (it makes ALOT of little rips in the paper they are about 10$ at any home improvement store) and then spray on a dawn/water mixture.

 

[BC]

Won't the scorer make marks in the sheetrock? I don't want to have to do alot of sanding.

 

[TwinmomPlusOne]

We had horrible wallpaper in our house when we moved in. I bought a steamer at home depot, and diff. I scored the wallpaper first with one of the round scoring tools, then used the diff per instructions. It worked, but not well.
Then I mixed 1/2 water and 1/2 cheap fabric softener and sprayed it on, then steamed. It worked very well! Good luck, it's a time consuming process at best.

 

[Papa Deuce]

Won't the scorer make marks in the sheetrock? I don't want to have to do alot of sanding.

It sure can, but not always. Sometimes you get frustrated and push TOO HARD on the scorer and it can get REALLY bad.

This is why we only have wallpaper in one room in our house.

 

[tmasingo]

Do you just spray it on and wait and it should peel off or what?

You buy a small round tool (a couple of dollars or so) and roll it over the wall, perforating the wallpaper. The Dif is a bluish gel-type substance you spray on the wallpaper after that and let it sit about 15-20 minutes. Once it's seeped through you then take a scraper and start scraping the paper off.

We moved into our house Labor Day weekend and have now taken wallpaper off of 6 rooms. It really all depends on what type of walls you've got underneath and how long it's been up there. We know the paper here had been up awhile and some rooms came right off even without Dif or the fabric softener mixture and other rooms didn't. Even the ones that did come off with the mixtures sometimes took 2 applications...one for the paper and another for the backing with the glue.

We just finished taking the paper off of our spare bedroom and neither the Dif nor fabric softener worked. We used a handheld steamer and it worked great.

All I can say is good luck!! It's been a real pain in the butt in some rooms and it can be so frustrating.

 

[RadioNate]

Good luck. Took us nearly a year to get the wallpaper off the walls in my mother's bedroom. That wallpaper was put up with actual paste and it was a nightmare to get off. The pre-sticky stuff is WAY easier but even if you don't see the glue on the walls right away you'll notice it sooner or later.

The fabric softener trick works well. I took a 3 year old boarder off that way in about an hour.

Dif works too. And use a good primer before you paint just incase their is any glue residue.

 

[DisneyKT]

Hi my friend and I just took down some wallpaper. We used a small clothes steamer that I have. I bought it from Bed Bath and Beyond. It worked like a charm. Came down very easy. Good Luck.

 

[JanetRose]

Pay someone to do it for you

 

[Kycha]

I used a shark steamer. I got mine at Linens n Things for around $100.

We were getting my Dad's house ready for an estate sale. Every room had floor to ceiling wallpaper from 30+ years ago. The kitchen was the worst. I remember my Mom would use clorox cleaner(the powder stuff) to clean the walls. This wallpaper was indestructable. I tried every imaginable trick to get this stuff off the wall...Dif...fabric softener...scoring...scraping. It was torture. The top layer(vinyl) would come off grudgingly and leave the paper and glue layer behind. Finally, I got desperate and pulled out my shark steamer. It came with a wallpaper attachment, but it didn't work very well. I put on the power nozzle and that paper and glue was flying off the walls. I was able to get all the wallpaper off with no damage and very little clean up.

 

[BC]

I paid someone to remove the last I had in the kitchen and they took sheetrock out the door with them when they left! What a mess! My hubby spackled, sanded and sanded for weeks! When we tried to get back up with them, they never responded. Not worth going after them over, so this time I thought I could do as well myself.

 

[FayeW]

Believe it or not, Febreeze does an amazing job of getting rid of wallpaper glue. I found out by accident!

Last spring we were getting our house ready to sell and had to remove some wall paper and border in several rooms. We mixed up the fabric softener and water mixture and that was working okay. By accident I grabbed the bottle of Febreeze instead of the fabric softener. It worked really well (and the house smelled great!)

 

[Costumesaremylife]

I second the steamer option. I just steamed off the forty year old terrible wallpaper in my house. I used my clothes steamer and a plastic paint scraper, it came off so easy!!