Removing wallpaper is a Horrible, Nasty job.

[ScreamingMeemie]

I find myself hating the people we bought this place from anew.

[Shell Beau]

1. Wallpaper is from the devil. It is terrible to remove.

[ScreamingMeemie]

2. Hey!

I was in your state for about 5 minutes last weekend when we overshot Graceland. :hug:

[Shell Beau]

3. Hahaha!!!!

Did y'all enjoy Graceland?

[ScreamingMeemie]

4. Yes, we did.

Amazing how many tourists there. That and the approaching Gustav gave us a hard time finding a hotel. How's the baby? Feeling okay?

[Shell Beau]

5. No joke! Where did y'all end up staying?

Did you get enjoy Memphis?

[ScreamingMeemie]

7. A little bit. I wanted to see Mud Island but we were running behind

and the little guy was missing his sister. The south is beautiful. :hug:

Oh, we stayed at a Comfort Inn and Suites off of I-55. It was the only one that had space but we ended up with this giant suite.

[Symarip]

6. There's some dohickey

Can't remember what it's called. But it pokes holes in the paper and you soak the holes with soap and water for about a half hour... It comes off alot easier.

Didn't mean to offer advice if you didn't want it, but I know wallpaper is a bitch.

[ScreamingMeemie]

8. advice always welcome.

I think I have that dohickey. I bought it (PaperTiger) yesterday. It works okay but, apparently, these people really wanted this paper to stay put. I'm hoping to market in two weeks and it'll be close. Thanks again. :)

[MissMillie]

40. you can rent a steamer too

that will really help to get it off.

:hi:

I hope you're well.

[PeaceNikki]

9. Mom's hint that people thank me for...

Remove the top layer..

If backing sticks, fill a spray bottle with HOT water and soak. Let sit for several minutes and peels right off.

Try it. Chemical-free and works like a charm.

[ScreamingMeemie]

13. Thank you. I'll try that because "Dif" isn't working.

:)

[PeaceNikki]

21. I swear... text of an email after I told co-worker....

-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: him
Sent: Friday, July 11, 2008 8:41 AM
To: me
Subject: RE: Wallpaper Removal

Can’t beat the price, either!

-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: me
Sent: Friday, July 11, 2008 8:41 AM
To: him
Subject: RE: Wallpaper Removal

Right?? That’s my mom’s trick. It’s a nice, easy, chemical-free solution.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

From: him
Sent: Friday, July 11, 2008 8:38 AM
To: me
Subject: Wallpaper Removal

Hey,

That hot water/squirt bottle wall paper paste and backing removal trick worked FANTASTIC!

Thanks!

[XemaSab]

10. It's true

Times like this you need to buy a good stripper to help you out. :)

[ScreamingMeemie]

14. Yeah. This one isn't very good.

And I so just want to be done with this. :)

[Dora]

11. I've never tried it, but "people say" fabric softener works.

It's rumored that diluted fabric softener in a spray bottle will help strip wallpaper more easily.

Good luck. Getting a house market-ready is hard work.

[ScreamingMeemie]

20. Thank you Dora.

Noted. :)

[conscious evolution]

27. fabric softener/water mix does work.

It also works well for removing bumper stickers and window decals.

[Digit]

56. Careful, there could be some oil in fabric softener

Which will make it difficult for the paint to adhere to the wall.
You will have a huge mess on your hands.

Google it, or instead, just use the plain hot water.

Remember..the wetter, the better.

[mikeytherat]

12. The wallpaper in the kitchen of our first home was attached with JOINT COMPOUND.

I. Shit. You. Not.

We had some awful blue and white "country kitchen" wallpaper, but it was in pretty good shape so we left it for a few months. Then, one of our ferrets, Bert, grabbed a little corner and ripped a good-sized piece off the wall (down to the backing paper), so we decided to remove it all. We discovered quickly how the paper had been attached.

Though the kitchen was only about 10 feet by 12 feet, it took us over a month of evenings to remove the paper and patch the gouged walls.

mikey_the_rat

[tigereye]

15. I ripped all of my" country" kitchen wallpaper out in a fit of pique...

it was driving me crazy :crazy:


( it was one of the many 70s gifts this old house keeps on giving...) :(

[ScreamingMeemie]

17. These people picked (in 1995) a brush strokes (think 1987) inspired

country themed beige with paint stroke, blue stemmed pink flowers. You know the kind that would go good with geese and teddy bears? Sigh... So I'm attempting to cheaply "update" because the cabinets are nice. I'm doing a taupe-ish paint with faux granite laminate.

[KitchenWitch]

16. Wallpaper is the devil.

I have wallpaper in two rooms. I am tempted to paint right over it and just have "textured walls"

:crazy:

[ScreamingMeemie]

19. I almost did that but this market sucks and is a buyer's market

so you're competing against approximately 1,237 houses. :)

[KitchenWitch]

24. Yeah

I hear that.

Any idea of where you will land when you move?

[ScreamingMeemie]

25. Pretty sure Houston.

Found a house I love (but am trying not to love too much just in case...but it's really too late because it's love) in a nice neighborhood near family. Temperate for the RA.

I will take a dive on this one even with a few upgrades but I know that going in.

I've come to the conclusion it's the right thing to do. People here (friends and family) keep expecting me to get back to being Laura (the Laura they knew with Leonard). That's never going to happen. People there will only know me, with the exception of a close family member, as this Laura.

[1gobluedem]

18. I understand completely

Every time I go into my back yard I curse the former residents who thought ground ivy was better than grass. Sooner or later it will engulf the house entirely and I will never be heard from again.

That damn stuff grows in anything -- even piles of leaves.

Good luck with the wallpaper. If you ask me, it sounds like a perfect job for Daydreamin' Hippie and WannaBe -- young and strong.

[ScreamingMeemie]

22. It does, doesn't it?

If only they were around,and motivated. :) :hug:

[Blue Diadem]

23. Ohhhh..I hate removing wallpaper.

Our house is about 120 yrs old. We had layers and layers and layers of wallpaper, hidden under paneling. Even the ceilings were wallpapered and then painted over. We were able to count 7 layers in the dining room. Most awful stuff to remove.

Hey, when you're done I still have one room we haven't tackled yet. ;-)

[ScreamingMeemie]

26. Erm...ahhhh... ahem...

7 layers. I shall shuteth up about this one layer promptly lo...

[Blue Diadem]

29. Is the paper over drywall or plaster?

After the first couple rooms, we used one of those paper tigers things with the little razor teeth to score it, then used really hot water in a spray pump(the kind that's used for lawn/garden where you can pump it up with pressure). We used a bit of vinegar mixed in since we were working with the old style pastes. Surprisingly it worked much better than when we used a wallpaper steamer.

IMO, it's actually harder to do a single layer. With all the layers, I didn't have to worry so much about over saturating with the water or gouging with the tiger thingy. We had the old horsehair and plaster with no finish coat and it had never been painted. It was just rough ugly gray plaster. DH put on the finish coat.

Goodluck with your project. I wish I lived closer, I'd be over there helping you.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

28. when my parents bought their house, they tried to remove the wall paper

then they realized that the couple who lived there before them, had piled wallpaper on wallpaper. I think they around 7 layers of paper to take out.

they were less than happy.

they also found out that the guy had his old undewear stuffed in lieu of insulation :wtf:


my poor parents!


all my sympathies to you. if we lived closer i would offer up lisa's help to you. she is really good at this sort of thing!

[ScreamingMeemie]

34. Oh my goodness, your poor parents is right.

Thanks. :hug: I wish you lived closer too. It would keep me on task to have someone who was good at it. I am a "start a million things and never finish one" kind of girl. It drove MrG nuts. :)

[La Lioness Priyanka]

39. lisa is a bit like that too, drives me cuckoo. to be fair though she has gotten much better

[zanne]

42. We recently tore down a wall in my mother's old house...

Part of the wall was filled with by brother's old 70's clothes; loud, plaid leisure suits and bell bottom pants. It was hilarious.

[ScreamingMeemie]

53. hahahahaha. I bet.

[Brigid]

30. Thanks for the tips, everyone!

This thread caught my eye because I will eventually have to get busy and remove wallpaper in my kitchen and bathroom. Previous owners over the years have been stupid and painted over the stuff. I also have reason to believe that there is more than one layer in the bathroom. It's going to be quite a chore, because the stuff has probably been up for forty years. I will probably have to take vacation time to get it done.

[zanne]

31. If you're planning of re-papering....

Make sure it's a classic pattern that won't be out of style in three years. Just remember all that scraping.

[ScreamingMeemie]

35. I hate wallpaper. This is just the last room that we never got around

to painting because of the darned wallpaper. I am painting it a color called Family Tree, a light taupe-ish color.

[bigwillq]

32. Yes it is.

I really can't stand wallpaper and don't know why anyone still puts it up.

We have some wallpaper in our house because that was the cool thing to do many years ago, but I just don't like it.

:hug:

[ScreamingMeemie]

36. Me either.

Can't stand it and this just reinforces that and I will never, ever paper a room. :hug:

[SPKrazy]

33. wallpaper is nasty, steaming it off

is still a mess

:hug:

[ScreamingMeemie]

37. My hands are feeling quite gicky and goopy

and it ended up making me sob, to be honest. :hug:

[SPKrazy]

43. Yeah, well

:hug:

be gentle on yourself, okay?

[LiberalEsto]

38. One suggestion

If the drywall gets damaged when you remove the old wallpaper, there's a product you can use to cover it. It's called Gardz High Performance Sealer

http://www.zinsser.com/product_detail.asp?ProductID=27

I was looking up something else on the company website and came across this. I may need to use it when I get around to stripping the hideous vinyl wallpaper from the main bathroom, because I don't think this paper is goung to relinquish its grip easily.

Good luck!

[ScreamingMeemie]

50. Thanks. It's plaster so I'll have to mud and sand a bit but so far

so good. :)

[masmdu]

41. Vingar and Water...Makes the Job E-Z! 4parts h2o to 1part vinegar

your place will smell like a pickle for a while but it works well when used in conjunction with one of those devices that rolls along making holes in the wallpaper.

Sponge it on.

Let it soak for about an hour after its on the wall.

Peel.

[ScreamingMeemie]

51. The Dif gel didn't work so well, but it's finally done.

:)

[pokerfan]

44. Tips on removing wallpaper

Step 1: Go to your computer's Desktop. Place the cursor anywhere in the Desktop area other than directly on an icon.

Step 2: Right click your mouse and the pop up menu will appear as shown in the image to the left. Place the cursor on Properties and left click your mouse.

Step 3: Clicking the Properties option on the menu in the previous step will cause the Display Properties screen at the left to appear. You now want to left click your mouse on the Desktop tab at the top of this screen.

Step 4: Notice the Backgrounds appearing in the box with the scroll down bar on the right. Simply scroll down to select the background that you want to appear on you desktop. In the example to the left I have set the background picture to None and selected the a solid blue color from the drop down menu in the bottom right corner.

[ScreamingMeemie]

49. Too bad I couldn't right click on the kitchen.

:)

[billyskank]

45. I'll help.

[ScreamingMeemie]

48. And I just went to the market so I would even make you lunch.

:) :hug:

[billyskank]

57. Wonderful.

:hug:

[mnhtnbb]

46. We lived in a house built in 1924 that had 17 layers of paint/wallpaper

in the entryway! The painter practically lived with us for 6 months (6 days a week)while
he stripped everything and painted/papered the whole house.

[ScreamingMeemie]

47. Oh boy. Kind of like Murphy Brown, eh?

:)

[mnhtnbb]

55. Murphy Brown premiered in 1988 while we were working on the house.

I was pregnant, had a 2 1/2 year old, then our daughter was stillborn Jan 1989. I became pregnant again, was confined to bed from 17-36 weeks due to complications, and our youngest son was born April 1990.

I didn't watch much TV from 1988-1993. I never did watch Murphy Brown. But if she totally redid
a big old house, then, yes, that's what we did. I loved that house in St. Joseph, MO. Wasn't crazy
about the town, but that's my favorite house I ever lived in.

[Tikki]

52. Our home built in '52...

For 25 years it was a rental and when we stripped the kitchen wallpapers..we
went through 4 layers...but when we got down to sheet rock on one of the walls
was a life size peace symbol painted there. :)
Prob from some time in the '60's, I would say.


Tikki

[ScreamingMeemie]

54. How cool.

Nothing exciting like that here. Just the original horrible, Howard Johnsons wall color. :)

[KG]

58. wallpaper should be illegal,

that said, if it was properly applied, it should come right off with a little Dif, warm water and that dohicky. otherwise it's hellish.