Wallpaper. I Hate You.

As we move from room to room we seem to be encountering different wallpaper obstacles. Some wallpaper is thick and when you do a dry pull you see that it is tearing down drywall behind it. Exhibit A below



If you see this happening stop. Try working from the top, nice and slow with a spray bottle of warm water and fabric softener. If the problem persists have a dry wall specialist take a look, quotes are free, OR do what we did and make the decision to simply put new sheets over it. Stucco look is another option but it depends on the look you like and your future buyer.

Some of the walls were prepped before the application of the wallpaper making the job much more manageable. Today I will discuss the easy way to tear down wall paper.

Tools you will need:

1. Spray bottle

2. Putty knife or 5 in 1 tool.

3. You can use fabric softener on the thicker paper or non prepped walls as you are going to have a lot more adhesive to scrape off in the end.

Yep that is about it. Fill your spray bottle with warm water and begin. My drywall guy said to start at the top and work your way down. He also introduced me to the fun fact that steamers are not the best way to go. If you leave it on in one spot it can saturate the drywall too much. This is the best way in his opinion. I am going to post pics we did not start from the top we just went every which way. I find the easiest way to scrape is in an upward motion. When you spray on the warm water give it a couple minutes to soak and then go to town. 

that it my mom going to town on the wallpaper.

Prepping after wallpaper includes:

1. Scraping off any glue residue and good washing of the walls. We purchased DIF from Sherwin Williams. It was good but when you scrape like we did I am not sure it is completely necessary.

3. Putty

2. Applying two coats of multi purpose primer (screw oil based it sucks)

Wash. Putty, Prime. Paint. If your house consists of 80% wallpaper like ours does my heart goes out to you but you will love your room when you take the time.

The Devil Incarnate

Grass Wallpaper from the 80's....

This stuff can get nasty we started with a basement full of it...

Some panels came off quite easy while others took a lot of scraping. The end result is simply what you see in the first picture.. a big mess, and no matter how much you scrape and wash the wall will never be perfect. SO options include:

1. Prepping the hell out of it then doing a skim coat

2. Prepping enough that the grass is all off and doing a stucco finish

3. Putting new dry wall sheets up.

there may be other options but these were the 3 presented to me. We are not going to be doing stucco in my opinion it is not easy for re-sale so we are going to choose option 1 and see where is gets us.