Today we closed on our new house. I had the car all packed up with my supplies and as soon as we were done I headed back to our new place to start stripping wallpaper.
I don’t like wallpaper. I’m a big fan of “hanging on the wall” stuff-framed prints, bowls, plates, mirrors, even hooked rugs. When you have a pattern in the background that sort of stuff just doesn’t look right. Instead I prefer a painted wall, preferably in a COLOR — not “rental white”.
For an old house, this one wasn’t too bad. Most of the original ugly wallpaper had already been removed-but several of the rooms have newer wallpaper. I started in the dinning room, since that room needs to be painted this weekend prior to the floor refinishers showing up next week. It had wallpaper half way up with a border midway around the room.
I was lucky-as I mentioned this was newer wallpaper. I was able to just pick at the seams and tear large strips off. This of course left the paper backing on the wall-but a squirt bottle full of a warm mixture of vinegar and water worked wonders on that! The method was simple-squirt until the paper backing was very saturated. Then wait about 3 minutes and the paper just peeled off.
Trust me, if you have ever stripped wall paper before, you know this was a blessed situation. I was able to use the cheapest method (Hello, water and vinegar! Pennies!), I didn’t have to buy any special equipment, and I was done with the whole room, to included scrubbing down the walls afterwards (I used a nylon type pot sponge in hot water & lysol to remove any little tiny bits of paper that were left, and then a sponge dipped in clean water to “rinse” ) in a couple of hours. It was even fun!
I went upstairs and pulled the wallpaper off of another entire room (which will be the playroom) that was the same sort of deal-wallpaper half way up and then border), and a single wall in a third room (Princess’ bedroom). Tomorrow I’ll use the squirt bottle treatment and finish those up. that will leave me with one bathroom (only papered above the beadboard) and the guest bedroom (papered on one wall and then a border). So I should be done with all of those in a couple of days.
More later-I’ve got work to do!
Congratulations!!!
Don’t forget to take lots and lots of before, during, and after photos. It seems like a chore when you are vinegar-sodden and tired, but you’ll appreciate one day.
Definitely consider yourself lucky. My husband just completed removing layer after layer of wallpaper in our late 1890s home. In addition to the wallpaper, chunks of plaster often came off during the process. He then has to go back and basically build the walls back up using joint compound. A huge, huge chore, but still worth it, in my opinion.
A friend and I recently took down wallpaper border with just a wet-soaked sponge. Never thought of vinegar-water… will file that away for future use!
Love your blog, by the way. I’m an upstater, too!
Good deal. Can you tell us what styles you selected?? Did you go with the Victorian look? Take care Annette
Just so you know Lay’s potato chips is giving a free sample of jerky when you buy the 24 pack of chips on sale at Walmart for only $5.00.
I feel your pain. Sounds like it is going pretty easy. I took some wallpaper border off my girls room and it took me 8 hours. I started with the wrong tools, that little scoring tool from the home depot ended up saving my butt!