Removing wallpaper is a risky business. If you want to follow DIY tutorials and do it at home, it can get very messy, very quickly. Then again, hiring professionals to do it can increase your expenses as well. There are some techniques that work better on specific wallpapers than others. To make sure you end up with clean and smooth walls, read below the tips to remove wallpaper in the most efficient way possible.
Firstly, know what kind of wallpaper you’re dealing with
There are mainly three types of wallpaper and figuring it out is one of the first steps to remove wallpaper. The traditional one, which is uncoated or untreated, can be removed right after getting it wet. Then there are the strippable wallpapers that are easier to take off because you don’t need to steam it beforehand; you can simply tear it off. The most difficult one to work with is the laminated coating or vinyl wallpaper. This kind of wallpaper is meant to be washable which makes it quite difficult to remove since you have to make sure that the water penetrates through the plastic layer.
Take necessary precautions
The first step is to prep the room well. Make sure to take out anything and everything that is movable. Cover the outlets and light switches properly to ensure that water or moisture can’t get through. Most importantly, cover the floors and remaining furniture to ensure that water can’t come in contact with them. This way, you’ll be able to remove wallpaper faster!
Peel off
Wallpapers beautify our homes. Since strippable wallpapers are the easiest type of wallpaper to take off, there’s not much to do here. Start from a corner, loosen up the wallpaper and start peeling off the layer in slowly by staying as close to the walls as you can so as to avoid tearing the paper. If the paper does get torn, start all over again.
Scrape it off
Traditional wallpapers can be easily removed but the task itself could be a little time-consuming. Sometimes peeling it off isn’t enough. For times like that, you need to use warm water to prep the walls and scrape off the wallpaper immediately. You have to do it at once or else the residue might harden over time. Use a putty knife or a scraper and spray the walls with warm water several times if you have a hard time removing the wallpaper.
However, be careful not to scrape too hard. If you have multiple layers underneath, make sure to remove one by one as putting too much pressure on your walls can ruin the end result.
Steam and remove
Remove wallpaper faster by steaming it off! This is the probably the best course of active in case of removing laminated-coating or vinyl-coated wallpaper. If your wall is vinyl-coated, you will have to steam your walls first so that the steam reaches the glue and loosens it up. As soon as it does, you will have to start removing the wallpaper immediately or the remaining parts might harden, making it impossible to remove the wallpaper. Instead of buying a hand-held steamer, try renting.
However, if you don’t want to take this hassle on your shoulders, there are many DIY solutions available on the internet that use ingredients which we usually have in our homes such as Vinegar which has many other benefits. They might be of help in terms of removing stubborn wallpapers.
Wash properly
Once you’re done with the removing bit, make sure to wash your walls thoroughly. Use a dampening sponge and wipe the floors up and own to ensure there’s no residue or any kind of solutions left. It doesn’t matter how good of a job you think you did if you don’t remove the paste properly, you will have a hard time painting or to putting wallpaper again. The surface isn’t going to look as smooth as you’d like it to appear; the paint will eventually flake and fall off, leaving a not-so-pretty sight! Moreover, the new wallpaper may not even stick to the wall properly. Therefore, make sure that the plaster is as smooth as it can be.
What did you think of our list of tips to remove wallpaper? Let us know if they were helpful in the comment section below!
