Removing Wallpaper

I realize wallpaper was extremely popular and fashionable in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. Who am I to knock a fashion trend? So it was only inevitable that we’d encounter having to remove this stuff in our 1965 home. But 12 out of 15 rooms is a bit ridiculous. Yes, you heard me right. Out of the 15, there were only 3 rooms not wallpapered when we moved in – the living room, sunroom and one of the bedrooms. Needless to say we have become experts at removing wallpaper…a skill I’d rather not possess.

We really couldn’t renovate and make this house our happy home without a clean slate. So the wallpaper had to go. But 12 rooms is A LOT!!! And we definitely encountered a few ups, a few downs and one nightmare. Here’s the breakdown…

The upside included our master bathroom, guest room 1, guest bathroom, family room, dining room and kitchen. No tools were needed when we were removing the wallpaper in these rooms. We simply grabbed a loose corner and did a gentle tug. The wallpaper magically peeled off in nice sheets. I realize that this doesn’t happen very often so I truly have a special love and appreciation in my heart for these particular rooms.

The downside included our master bedroom, upstairs and downstairs hallway. No easy pull and peel solution here. For the master bedroom we found that a wallpaper steamer and scraper worked wonders. Unfortunately both hallways proved to be a little harder and we had to use our friend WP Chomp, a scraper and a lot of muscle.

The nightmare became our guest room 2, nicknamed ‘The Smoke Room.’ This room quickly became the bane of our existence…along with my dad, Keith’s dad, grandpa and brother. The Smoke Room is just that – a bedroom that the previous homeowner would always smoke in. This was probably one of the least appealing aspects to buying the house because we both think smoking is a nasty and dirty habit. The good news is that the smoke smell really did just stay within the walls of the bedroom.

Now, we are not sure if the smoke had anything to do with the fact that the wallpaper in this room would not come off, but I think it probably didn’t help the matter. The wallpaper literally was like white on rice. It just WOULD NOT come off. Numerous attempts with a steamer, scrapper, WP Chomp, hot water, fabric softener and vinegar could not help the situation.

We were starting to worry that we’d have to knock down all the walls and put up new drywall. Fortunately we found a solution! Simply stick my dad in the room for 2 days straight, 8 hours each day with a sander and VOILA! What a great dad – right? The man definitely earned his wings in heaven for doing that for us! (thank you, thank you, thank you!)

Only one room remains with wallpaper now and that is our basement. We plan to refinish the basement at some point, but for now it’s just going to be left with shag carpet and wallpaper. Groovy baby!

I realize wallpaper is slowly making a fashion comeback…just not in this happy house! If I didn’t have to rip off so much of the darn stuff from the previous owners, I might have actually considered wallpapering one of the rooms because there are some very fashionable papers that I admire, like from Walnut Wallpaper. But I'll just have to save that for another time and another place.

Stay tuned to find out about our painting plan and other BIG projects!