Periodically, wallpaper has been a popular covering for homeowners to apply to their walls. Certain styles or looks could only be achieved with the application of wallpaper. However, what once was a design trend can date the room after a few years, and many people want to remove the wallpaper. The removal of wallpaper isn't hard, but there are techniques you must know to make the job easier.
What Is the Wallpaper Applied To?
Depending on the age of the house, your walls will either be drywall or plaster. You can usually determine what you have by knocking on the wall. If the wall sounds hollow, then it is drywall. If not, then you have plaster over lath.
Drywall, because it is gypsum sandwiched between two pieces of paper, is easily damaged by water and rough handling. If you have drywall, be careful when you are removing wallpaper. Don't worry, though, if you do damage it, as drywall mud or putty and a little sanding can quickly cover the mistake. When you paint the walls after removing the wallpaper, you won't even see this patch.
Removing the Wallpaper Dry
Depending upon the age of the wallpaper, it is possible that it was designed to be removed dry. If this is the case, consider yourself lucky. Find a small section of wallpaper that is out of the way to do a test pull.
Using a putty knife, slowly raise a small amount of the wallpaper. One of the easiest places to start is at the molding around a door. Once you have lifted a section, pull the paper at a 15- to 20-degree angle away from the wall. Do not rip it off like a bandage, but pull it slowly with an even amount of strength. The aim is to get as much off as you can in one pull. The more pulls that you have to do, the greater the chance of damage.
If the wallpaper also pulls away the protective paper on the drywall, then it was not designed to be removed with the dry technique. Immediately stop and move on to the wet technique.
Using the Wet Technique
The wet technique is the most common way of removing wallpaper. Many home improvement stores such as Lowes or The Home Depot sell wallpaper solvent, which is designed to wet the paper and dissolve or weaken the glue holding the paper to the wall.
Using either a paint roller or a spray bottle, apply the solvent to the wall. Never apply the solvent to the wallpaper in sections larger than what you can remove in 15 to 20 minutes. Walls can be damaged by prolonged exposure to the solvent.
If you don't want to use chemicals, applying steam will also help loosen the wallpaper. The above-mentioned home improvement stores rent or sell wallpaper steamers. A wallpaper steamer uses the heat of the metal that is pushed against the wall to create steam as water passes through it and into the wallpaper. This is a highly effective way to remove wallpaper, but extremely hot water can drip from the steamer, so be careful.
Related posts
You can safely remove old wallpaper from your drywall.Essentially wallpaper is glued onto drywall. Unfortunately in many cases, you will find out the drywall is not primed and the paper was simply...
Wallpaper doesn't keep its appeal forever. Styles change, or paper becomes dingy and fades. When this happens, consider removing the wallpaper and painting the walls instead. Then cover the walls...
Wallpaper removal can be a messy process that damages the drywall beneath.Even the best wallpaper removal techniques can run into some serious snags if the wallpaper was not hung properly to begin...
Underneath that paint or wallpaper is drywall.Wallpaper removal is not all that difficult but if you live in an older home, you may discover that some recent wallpaper was not hung properly. Walls...
It is time for a change and you decided to remove wallpaper in one of your rooms. Now you have a hole or two in areas where the wall paper removal tore into the paper and drywall board. You can ea...
