Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Easy Peasy Wallpaper Removal


A while ago I hinted towards the fact that I had removed the wallpaper in our little breakfast nook. Saying that the wallpaper was dated is putting it pretty nicely. It was bad.
I hadn’t planned on removing it that afternoon, I actually was just curious. So, I lifted up a corner at one of the seams, annnnd



it peeled off like melted butter. (Is that a saying? It sounds like a saying.) It came off the entire wall in huge sheets, only tearing at the seams where the pieces met. I could stand on the floor and just pull and the entire section would come off! Hooray! I thought that this would have been a much more labor-intensive process but honestly, the whole thing only took me 20 minutes tops.



However, peeling off that old paper did leave a pretty rough surface. All of the adhesive was still stuck onto the wall. I used a spray bottle that I found lying around and filled it with some white vinegar diluted with water. Working in small sections I would spray with the vinegar solution, scrub with a rough sponge, then rinse and wipe with clean water. This process took a lot longer, and didn’t seem to make a difference until the section I had been working on was dry. Once dried it felt all smooth, like butter you guys. Seriously. (The color is pretty close too.)



Removing the old wallpaper was a great start to this room. However, the surface underneath was in pretty rough shape. The wallpaper had been used to cover lots of flaws in the plaster. Cracks, chipping, dents, you name it. Luckily, none of it was too bad that it couldn’t be fixed with some heavy duty spackle. Which is what I did. Spackling definitely isn’t a job meant for perfectionists, like myself. I want to just cover the entire wall with a skim coat so that it is completely level, but Nick thinks that is a little unnecessary.

So instead, I focused on the obvious flaws. I still have to go back in and sand it all down. That was put on the backburner once we started the actual moving process because we didn’t want all of our stuff to be covered in dust. I am planning on getting to it one of these naptimes though, and hopefully making use of the wet sanding sponges that Nick bought to keep the mess to a minimum. Then it will be ready for paint! (Yellow just isn’t really our thing) I think we’re planning on using the same blue/grey that we want to eventually use for the kitchen, because after that dividing wall with the window gets knocked out it will be one large open space. Yay for modernizing!

I really lucked out with this room so far! Have you had any great experiences with wallpaper removal? How about any, not-so-great ones? I have a feeling our master bath wallpaper isn’t going to be quite so easy! I’ll probably need some tips. Leave ‘em in the comments below!

XO
Sam

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