Wallpaper fiasco!

[tancowgirl2000]

So when we moved into this lovely house, the kitchen has on one wall green and white striped wallpaper...the stripes are an inch apart. When walking past it you actually get dizzy from it. OH it is SO going!

Today I thought I was brave and started peeling it off...in some placees it's the drywall in others its primed....so HOW on earth do I get the stuff off.....Does vinegar work wonders in this case.....PLEASE HELP ME!!!!

 

[norgeskog]

tancowgirl, I never heard of vinegar removing wallpaper. It can be complicated. There are special machines, similar to a steam iron theory, that you rent and hold on the paper and steam and then pull or scrape it offf, then there is the old wet sponge thing, either way messy. Good luck. Do you have a Home Depot in CAnada or somthing similar?

 

[tancowgirl2000]

We hace a Hoem Depot, but I'm cheap....the thing with the vinegar is that it is supposed to remove the glue, ,and the sponge theory is for the paper....wet .....ah who knows....thanks for the thought

 

[norgeskog]

We hace a Hoem Depot, but I'm cheap....the thing with the vinegar is that it is supposed to remove the glue, ,and the sponge theory is for the paper....wet .....ah who knows....thanks for the thought

You are right, try it, vinegar is rather cheap, and a better word would be frugal. Cheap is when someone fumbles for his wallet and money when the check arrives, frugal is someone like us who loves bargains so our other money can be spent on more fun things...

 

[mudbug]

No help here. All I know about wallpaper is what I've seen on TV. They say you should get a spray bottle full of water and wet the wall down, use a scraper thing you can get at one of the hardware stores to score the paper, and that should help it come off easier.

 

[kitchenelf]

When I took wallpaper off unexpectedly I used a mop and hot water with Dawn dishsoap (it has to be Dawn). I pulled the outer wallpaper off and this is how I got the backing off. Just wipe a section at a time from top to bottom with HOT slightly sudsy water (I actually just used hot water but a good friend said the Dawn works wonders but then you have to rinse it - I didn't have to rinse mine). Gently use a scraper. I swear I don't think we had one and we used a pancake turner But don't ding your sheetrock - if you do it's easy to fix with spackle though.

So, that is my recommendation. The floor will get kind of messy so you may have to put down towels and move them around the room as you wipe the walls down.

 

[Alix]

Hey Tanis, score the paper with steel wool, then just spray hot water on the section you are peeling. Use a flat bladed scraper thingy and it should come off no problem. If you have trouble, you can go buy some stuff that sort of bubbles it all off. It smells HORRIBLE, but it will do the deed. Try steel wool first. I just did my dining room. It took no time at all that way. Good luck girl!

 

[Audeo]

I've also employed Elf's method successfully. There's just something special about Dawn, but the water must be HOT!

Here's another thought for you, tanis. Around these parts, people are paid huge sums of money to do interior decorating and some of the most beautiful Tuscan-style kitchens I've ever seen had their original wall paper torn off in spurts, leaving a lot of ragged mess on the walls. The decorators love texture! For them, it's either leave half of the wall paper in irregular ragged splotches, or retouch the walls with spackling compound to try and recreate it. Beautiful finishes with tea stains...

 

[MJ]

How are you doing with the wallpaper (soon to be) Birthday Girl?

 

[Psiguyy]

If it doesn't peel off, you need to get it off with water in the form of liquid or steam. Thing is, the water needs to get to the paste. So, you need to purchase this little hand tool that has three spikey wheels. You run it all over the wallpaper and it punches numerous holes in the paper. The holes let the water get in under the paper.

Skipping this step is a big mistake, especially if you're dealing with vinyl wall covering.

 

[middie]

vinegar doesn't really do much.
plain hot water seemed to work
better when we took our wallpaper
down. score the wallpaper and use
very very hot water and let it soak
into the wallpaper for a few minutes.

 

[buckytom]

steam works best, and is the safest. rent a machine; for the few extra bucks it costs to rent, it will save you the agony of having to repair what was damaged taking the old stuff off other ways...

i have re-wallpapered a few kitchens and baths. it is a bit tricky, but once you get the "hang of it", it's not so bad. just remember to spackle and sand and prime the walls with special primer before you hang the new paper. and hanging the first sheet plumb and level is the key.

 

[kitchenelf]

Psiguy - the outer wallpaper will just peel off - the backing will come off fine without doing anything other than applying hot water and a tad of Dawn - it works unbelievably good! I never would have believed it until I did it. Absolutely no scoring was needed.

 

[SizzlininIN]

Tan...........I'd dig into my pockets and save yourself some greif and alot of extra labor hours and go to your local Home Depot, Lowes, or Menards and tell them your situation and see what they recommend. I know when we bought this house it was such a struggle to get the wallpaper off......thankfully I had family that helped. I don't believe the people that lived here before primed the walls first. Like Bucky suggested be sure to spackle any holes or cracks and prime the walls before hanging new wallpaper. If your hanging wall paper for the first time you may want to stay away from busy patterns because its an effort to get the sections lined up..........believe me I know I wasted a lot of wallpaper with my first wallpaper job..........sort of a plaid effect on the wallpaper..........took me awhile but I finally succeeded. But then the carpet layers came in and mucked it and my freshly painted trim up when laying the carpet...........talk about mad..........I was reimbursed for new materials and my labor hours but it was just so sad to see all the hard work I put into that room ruined in a matter of less than an hour.........errrrrrrrrrr!!
As my daddy always says............"You Live & Learn". Next time I'll have the carpet laid first and invest in floor protectors and do the walls/trim after

 

[crewsk]

Tancowgirl, I know I'm late but my brother has been the manager of a paint store for about 10 years now & when we stripped the wallpaper in our bathroom, we had pretty much the same problem. I called him & he said to mix 1 part ammonia to 4 parts hot water in a spray bottle & spray on the walls. Let it sit for about a minute & them use a plactic putty knife to scrape off the wallpaper. It worked wonders! None of the walls in our bathroom had been primed before the wallpaper was put up & there were 3 layers of wallpaler backing left on the walls. Plus, one of those layers still had the wallpaper stuck to it in palces.