With fall just around the corner, it is time to swap your old wallpapers with something fresh and on-trend. But in order to remove the wallpapers yourself, you must overcome the fear that removing wallpaper on your own is a difficult process.
Wall-covering installation experts at Encore Painting have been providing interior painting services and wallpaper removal services for two decades and they have only one thing to say – wallpaper removal is not as difficult as many people made you believe.
The only catch is that you need to use the right primer and the wallpaper should come up very easily. If the service who put the wallpaper there didn’t hang the paper properly, then maybe you could run into some problems.
Whether or not the wallpapers in your home were professionally installed, we have a step by step guide from our experts which will help you strip those walls and ready for something nice and trendy in no time.
So let’s begin this step by step guide to removing wallpapers like a professional.
It All Begins With Taping
- Before you start to remove any wallpapers, it is very important to cover all the other surfaces of the room from the soap and water you’ll be using in the next few hours. Be sure to buy some painter’s tape and cover the molding and trim completely.
We recommend laying drop cloth across the floors of your room to help protect the finish.
Start by Peeling the Wallpapers
- If the wallpaper on your wall has been around for many years, it may already be falling off and you could easily just pull them off the walls. You can start by removing the wallpapers by hand without using any water or soap.
If you need something to help you out, try using a taping knife, the same tool you would use for patching walls. Find an edge of the wallpaper and scrape it off.
Bring the Water in
- Eventually, the time will come when the rest of the wallpaper will become difficult to remove. Even a taping knife may not help you when this happens. But if you spray or wash the walls with water, removing the paper will become easier.
Use any generic spray bottle to spray water on the wallpaper and let it become fully wet. We recommend using hot water to speed the process. Don’t forget to cover the floor of your room with a drop cloth or plastic before you do this.
Now its Time to Scrape the Wallpaper
- After the wallpaper has been soaked in water for a few minutes, you can begin scraping the wallpaper. You can use the same taping knife from the previous steps to strip the wallpaper. Use the knife from left-to-right or from up-to-down. Make sure to follow the direction you start with.
If you still have trouble removing the wallpaper adhesive, you may want to spray the surface again. We recommend using a garden sprayer for this job.
- Just be careful not to scratch the surface beneath the wallpaper or it could ruin your wall. If there is another layer of wallpaper beneath, make sure to completely remove the first layer and then move on to the second. Typically, it is best to remove one layer of the wallpaper at a time.
Time to Wash it
- Once the wallpaper has completely been taken down, you can start washing the wall with warm water in small sections. Just make sure your wall is water-resistant to avoid any long term damages. This will help you remove excess primer or wallpaper adhesive.
We recommend dampening a sponge with warm water and then rubbing the wall thoroughly to prevent damaging the wall.
- Washing the wall is very important because no matter how professionally you remove the wallpaper if the old adhesive isn’t washed off, you are going to face a lot of difficulties when putting on a new paper.
Smoothen the Wall
- You have to make sure your wall is as smooth as if it was just painted. Even the tiniest amount of wallpaper adhesive can give you a lot of problems when you install a new one.
If you don’t get all the adhesive off, the paint will start to crackle and flake after some time. And if you apply new wallpaper, it will fail to stick properly or start to bubble up gradually.
- The best way to get rid of this problem is to apply a gel stripper to any patches of the adhesive then scrape it off from the wall to make sure the plaster is as smooth as it can be.
Time to Reapply the Wallpaper
With everything done, now you can finally put on a new wallpaper. Pick out a wallpaper that suits your personality or the touch you want to give to your walls depending on the room.
Conclusion
Removing wallpaper is a very easy task as long as you are consistent with the steps we have provided above. If you have never removed wallpaper before, try DIY-ing this method to a room that you don’t regularly use.
And if everything else fails, leave it to the experts. Encore Painting provides professional wallpaper removal services that ensure no matter how old or bad the wallpaper has been installed, it is removed perfectly to make way for the new wallpapers. Give us a call today or get your free estimate by filling this simple form.