For the past few nap-times I have been busy removing wallpaper from our upstairs stairway and hallway. The previous owners had what I consider a moment of insanity and decided to put this terrible blue, with HUGE flower wallpaper…everywhere upstairs! It is awful. It burnt our eyes every time we went upstairs.
This is the view from the top of the stairway looking down into the living room:
Okay, so maybe it was not the worse it could possibly be, but never the less it had to go!! It took me more nap-times then I can count to rip all the paper down. I used the Wagner steamer, and it really helped. It was easy to tear off the top layer but the backing need a nice hot steam shower to be scraped off!
Here is what the area looks like now. With 98% of the wallpaper gone:
Yes, the area is still very ugly. And still has a long way to go. But it already feels much lighter and brighter.
I will admit that I am rather disappointed by the drywall job the previous owners did. I am guessing they knew they were going to be covering every inch of every wall with the hideous wallpaper and decided to do a less then stellar job on the drywall, knowing it would be covered anyway.
This is what I am talking about:
That is pretty much what all the baseboards look like…where the drywall meets it. We’ve already bought caulk and putty to fix all the cracks, before we paint. BUT before I can even do that, I am now working on the tedious job of removing all the tiny pieces of paper that were left behind. Thankfully it is moving along quicker then I anticipated.
I ended up using a spray bottle with a half and half solution of vinegar and water. I sprayed the paper pieces, and used a putty knife to scrape it off. Be careful not to dig into the drywall or soak the drywall too much!
That is the worst of it. 8 out of the 10 wall surfaces are completed and ready for the caulk and putty.
How did I get the wallpaper off?
- I used a wallpaper scorer and went over the walls pretty quickly.
- I then used my steamer and gave a section about twice the width of the steamer paddle and went the full height of the wall. I would pause and use a large putty knife to peel of off the wallpaper.
- For the really stubborn pieces I would saturate them with a solution of half vinegar and half water, and THEN use my putty knife.
I wont lie the whole process was tedious, but it went pretty quickly, and it feels SO much better!
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