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Removing bad wallpaper vs. covering it up? Gwen Morse 06-13-2006
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Posted by on June 13, 2006, 11:17 pm
I feel your pain. I also have had this problem.

Try a steamer after scoring the paper with the paper tiger (as many
holes as possible). You can buy a small one for $50 made by Wagner I
believe. It works but is slow. The draw back of a steamer is that it
can also soften the paint such that some of the paint will come off
also. You will need to spackle and sand the walls in all probability.
On the plus side, a steamer usually works.

I have had mix results with Diff. Sometime it works. Other times it
doesn't. The trick is is score the wallpaper as much as possible. Also
give it plenty of time and multiple sprayings to work.

I would caution against painting over it since you have strip off the
top surface of the paper. The backing can absorb the moisture from the
paint and the result will be bubbling of the paper backing.
Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way.

Good luck. So far I have done 8+ rooms with one hallway to go. Wit
luck, my better half will never want to wallpaper again. I don't mind
hanging it but removing it is too painful.


Gwen Morse wrote:
> First of all, thanks for the suggestion to check a locksmith for the
> special door locks that I wanted. I have locks that work the way I
> wanted since going that route.
>
> I have another question.
>
> I had ugly wallpaper in my eat-in-kitchen. I tore it down. It wasn't
> the normal "strip-able" wallpaper, and I only found that out when it
> was too late.
>
> I don't really want to cover the resulting wall with wallpaper,
> although I will do that if it's absolutely necessary. I really prefer
> to just fix up and paint the wall.
>
> The situation is this: There's some sort of weird wall paper backing
> that's still glued firmly to the drywall, in weird sheets/patterns. It
> didn't come off neatly, nor did it "stay behind" neatly. I've tried
> scoring it with a paper tiger and using Diff. This stuff won't come
> off. When thoroughly saturated, it reluctantly comes off more like
> damp paint than damp paper. It's quite possible that old wallpaper was
> imperfectly stripped off and then painted over, leaving the resulting
> mess behind. It's actually two walls. One wall is almost all drywall
> with just little (stubborn) fingerlength-sized flakes left behind. The
> other wall is almost all paper, with handprint-sized gaps down to the
> drywall.
>
> A visiting houseguest whose reasonably handy saw it and suggested I
> might just...err...mud over the whole wall, but, I'm not sure I could
> do that and have it come out as smooth as real drywall. I'm also not
> confident I could just take down the old drywall and put up fresh
> boards.
>
> What are some options that just require elbow grease and tiny
> financial outlays (like, less than $100)? I haven't tried steaming it
> yet, but, I don't know that a steamer will work where the score/Diff
> process failed.
>
> Gwen
>
> --
> Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com


Real Goods Solar, Inc.
Posted by homeguy on June 14, 2006, 7:06 am
If it's one wall you could get creative and put up oak slaths or even
metal and then sand with a circular sander to put in swirls for
texture. The suggestion of re-skinning the walls with 3/8" drywall is
also another great option. Wallpaper can be miserable to remove. Try
a small section first to see what you're instore for.

noname87@hotmail.com wrote:
> I feel your pain. I also have had this problem.
>
> Try a steamer after scoring the paper with the paper tiger (as many
> holes as possible). You can buy a small one for $50 made by Wagner I
> believe. It works but is slow. The draw back of a steamer is that it
> can also soften the paint such that some of the paint will come off
> also. You will need to spackle and sand the walls in all probability.
> On the plus side, a steamer usually works.
>
> I have had mix results with Diff. Sometime it works. Other times it
> doesn't. The trick is is score the wallpaper as much as possible. Also
> give it plenty of time and multiple sprayings to work.
>
> I would caution against painting over it since you have strip off the
> top surface of the paper. The backing can absorb the moisture from the
> paint and the result will be bubbling of the paper backing.
> Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way.
>
> Good luck. So far I have done 8+ rooms with one hallway to go. Wit
> luck, my better half will never want to wallpaper again. I don't mind
> hanging it but removing it is too painful.
>
>
> Gwen Morse wrote:
> > First of all, thanks for the suggestion to check a locksmith for the
> > special door locks that I wanted. I have locks that work the way I
> > wanted since going that route.
> >
> > I have another question.
> >
> > I had ugly wallpaper in my eat-in-kitchen. I tore it down. It wasn't
> > the normal "strip-able" wallpaper, and I only found that out when it
> > was too late.
> >
> > I don't really want to cover the resulting wall with wallpaper,
> > although I will do that if it's absolutely necessary. I really prefer
> > to just fix up and paint the wall.
> >
> > The situation is this: There's some sort of weird wall paper backing
> > that's still glued firmly to the drywall, in weird sheets/patterns. It
> > didn't come off neatly, nor did it "stay behind" neatly. I've tried
> > scoring it with a paper tiger and using Diff. This stuff won't come
> > off. When thoroughly saturated, it reluctantly comes off more like
> > damp paint than damp paper. It's quite possible that old wallpaper was
> > imperfectly stripped off and then painted over, leaving the resulting
> > mess behind. It's actually two walls. One wall is almost all drywall
> > with just little (stubborn) fingerlength-sized flakes left behind. The
> > other wall is almost all paper, with handprint-sized gaps down to the
> > drywall.
> >
> > A visiting houseguest whose reasonably handy saw it and suggested I
> > might just...err...mud over the whole wall, but, I'm not sure I could
> > do that and have it come out as smooth as real drywall. I'm also not
> > confident I could just take down the old drywall and put up fresh
> > boards.
> >
> > What are some options that just require elbow grease and tiny
> > financial outlays (like, less than $100)? I haven't tried steaming it
> > yet, but, I don't know that a steamer will work where the score/Diff
> > process failed.
> >
> > Gwen
> >
> > --
> > Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com


Posted by on June 14, 2006, 9:03 am
The OP says it comes off when thoroughly saturated. So, I would go
that route by trying a steamer, which might make it come off quite
easily. Very easy to try, that's for sure.


Posted by on June 14, 2006, 11:58 pm
Gwen Morse wrote:
> I had ugly wallpaper in my eat-in-kitchen. I tore it down. It wasn't
> the normal "strip-able" wallpaper, and I only found that out when it
> was too late.
>
> I don't really want to cover the resulting wall with wallpaper,
> although I will do that if it's absolutely necessary. I really prefer
> to just fix up and paint the wall.
> What are some options that just require elbow grease and tiny
> financial outlays (like, less than $100)? I haven't tried steaming it
> yet, but, I don't know that a steamer will work where the score/Diff
> process failed.

You can paint right over wallpaper. My wife and I have now done it in
several rooms in our house.

My house is a 1923 colonial that obviously had wallpaper applied to
most of its rooms in, probably, 1923. Literally every room in the
house except the dining room was wallpapered when we got it. We pulled
up a couple corners of it when we looked at the house the first couple
times and figured it wouldn't be too difficult to get it off. Boy were
we wrong. We also tried DIF and ended up just doing a whole bunch of
damage to our walls after finding out it was just layer upon layer upon
layer of paper and trying to get it all off. It was like going back
through a time machine seeing all these different wallpapers. It took
me the better part of a week to get one 2x2 square foot section of our
kitchen done, and by the time I got down to bare plaster, my wall had a
noticeable dip in it from my scraping and sanding, and it was no longer
smooth.

Eventually we said "screw it" and decided to just paint over it. As
we've gone along we've sort of perfected the process. The first room
we did (that kitchen) didn't turn out all that great but it's still
better than looking at either wallpaper or damaged walls. There is
some bubbling of the paper, though, and some seams.

But the room I'm doing now - the living room - is turning out great.
This room has a wallpaper runner along the top, which means big seams
if I didn't do anything about it. The secret is to sand, sand, sand,
then prime, prime, prime. Sand all over the wallpaper with thick-grit
sandpaper, but especially the seams. Not just the seams, though;
you've gotta smooth out all those little imperfections that the paper
is hiding but that will come through when you've got a flat single
color over it. Then prime with an oil-based (not water-based) primer.
Then sand again - you'll see what still needs to be smoothed out after
you prime. Then prime again. Rinse and repeat until you're satisfied
but for me it has never taken more than two sandings and priming coats.

It is still a lot of work but it is less work than stripping wallpaper
and I honestly think that you will probably end up with better looking
walls at the end of the process. If you've got layers and layers of
wallpaper that just won't come off, you're just going to kill your
walls trying to force it.


Posted by Norminn on June 15, 2006, 8:47 am
clipped
> It is still a lot of work but it is less work than stripping wallpaper
> and I honestly think that you will probably end up with better looking
> walls at the end of the process. If you've got layers and layers of
> wallpaper that just won't come off, you're just going to kill your
> walls trying to force it.
>
All those layers of paper offered protection to your nice, real plaster
walls. I've never had trouble getting paper off - coarse sandpaper to
score it, spray with water, wait, scrape. Messy but no big deal.

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