How to Remove Wallpaper from Drywall

So, your house is not old or you’ve confirmed that your old house has drywall, not lath and plaster walls. Is there an easy way to get the wallpaper down?

How to Remove Wallpaper from Lath and Plaster Walls

There are a lot of instructions on the internet, but if you do it this way, it won’t be as much work and it won’t take as long.

Things you will need:

• Drop cloth and thin plastic drape
• Blue tape
• Lots of Towels
• Rags
  Synthetic sweatshirts make really good rags for this because they are easy to rinse. Cut them to manageable sizes. If you don’t have any, thrift stores sell old sweatshirts cheap. Don’t bother with the cotton ones. The synthetic ones really make the job easier.

Things you probably need:

• Extension cord for light
• Mr Clean
• Pump Sprayer
  Worth the investment. It makes the job go so much faster and saves your arm.
• Two Buckets (or more if you have them, but at least two)
• Plastic NOT METAL Scrapers
  It is nice to have a few different widths.

Things you hopefully won’t need:

• Crosscut saw

Start with Drop Cloths

No matter what paper you are removing, start with drop cloths.

Take everything off the walls. If possible, take everything out of the room. At least push everything into the middle of the room, away from the walls.

If you have heavier canvas drop cloths, lay these down first. If not, lay down some heavier weight plastic. Thin plastic will tear as you walk on it and move a stepladder around.

Then lay down some thin plastic drape. Tape it to the baseboards.

Finally, keep some old towels where you are working to soak up any water.

Turn Off Power to Outlets and Switches

To find the right breaker, plug in a radio and turn it up loud enough to hear from the fuse or breaker box. You can hear when the radio goes off so you are sure you have the right fuse/breaker. Plug it into the rest of the outlets, to make sure they are all off. They may not all be on the same fuse/breaker.

I always leave the radio plugged in. Sometimes someone flips the breaker back on and I want to know.

Flip the switch and make sure the light doesn’t come on. (If it does, find that breaker.) Leave the switch in the on position, so you will be warned if someone turns the power back on. (I was surprised by how many homeowners turned the power back on.)

Then put plenty of blue tape over the outlets and switches so you don’t have to clean glue back out of them later. You can push the radio through the blue tape to leave it plugged in.

If there isn’t enough light, run an extension cord. Use a drop light or plug in lamps.

Identify Your Wallpaper

If there is a loose corner or seam, pull to see what kind of wallpaper you have. If nothing is loose, it might be easiest to find a loose edge under a switch plate or outlet cover.

A lot of these instructions are nearly the same. I’m going to repeat myself so you can just skip to what kind of wallpaper you have and only read that part.

Fabric Backed Wallpaper

Fabric backed wallpaper is the easiest to remove. It will come off all in one piece. Sometimes it leaves a little bit of backing that looks like sewing interfacing. If it does, ignore it for now.

Roll the removed wallpaper up and get it out of your work area. You might want to use the big pieces as additional drop cloth, but don’t step on it when it is wet, it is really slippery and you will track glue around.

What is left on the wall is glue. If the walls look pretty good, you may be able to hang wallpaper over this glue. But if you are going to paint, it all has to come off.

There are a few kinds of glue, but they all remove about the same.

Pick a spot to start. Put up a stepladder and lay out some towels to catch the water that runs off the taped on thin plastic as you spray. You are working on about four feet of wall at a time.

Put Mr. Clean and hot tap water into the pump sprayer. Just follow the proportions on Mr. Clean. Pump it up and spray the wall, starting at the top. Let the water work. Don’t try to gouge the glue off the wall. It will come off very easily without damaging the wall if you give it time. Any bits of backing that are still on the wall will hold onto the water and help soften the glue.

So, spray and wait. Once it is softened enough, scrape it off with a plastic scraper. Don’t use a metal scraper. A metal scraper is very likely to damage the surface of the drywall. Scrape the glue off the wall and then scrape it off the scraper into the bucket. Work on one area at a time or it will dry back up. I stick with everything I can reach at the top before I move the stepladder, then work on everything below that.

Once you have most of the glue scraped off, put hot water into the second bucket and wash the wall off with the rags. Start at the top and go to the bottom. Keep washing until the water is clear. Don’t rush it. Make sure it is really, really clean. If you let the wall dry again, it will be harder to get the glue off, so finish one area at a time. Make sure all the glue is off the wall or the paint will peel wherever the glue is left on.

Once one area is clean, move to the next area. If the towels are sopping, throw them in a bucket and lay out more towels. You need towels that are dry enough to keep the water from running off the drop cloths and into your floor. You would not believe how gluey that water is and what a mess it can make, so keep it contained.

Strippable Paper

Strippable wallpaper comes off in big pieces, but usually leaves a lot of backing on the wall.

Pull off everything that comes off in big pieces. You should be able to pull off all of the surface. Don’t work too hard getting the backing off. The backing will actually act like a sponge. It will help you get the glue off the wall.

Roll and crumple all the pieces of wallpaper up, bag them and get them out of your work area. It is easy to trip if you leave wallpaper around.

Pick a spot to start. Put up a stepladder and lay out some towels to catch the water that runs off the taped on thin plastic as you spray. You are working on about four feet of wall at a time.

Put Mr. Clean and hot tap water into the pump sprayer. Just follow the proportions on Mr. Clean. Pump it up and spray the wall, starting at the top. Let the water work. The backing will turn dark as you spray. Give it time. Eventually it will pucker up and start to come off the wall.

If you start pulling off the backing before the glue behind it is completely softened, you will work a lot longer and a lot harder. Just wait. Spray it again. When the glue is really soft, you can kind of wipe the glue off with the backing and throw it into a bucket. If the glue is thick, use a plastic scraper to scrape it and any remaining backing off the wall, then scrape it off the scraper into the bucket.

Work on one area at a time or it will dry back up. If it gets dry, spray it again. I stick with everything I can reach at the top before I move the stepladder, then work on everything below that.

Once you have the glue and backing scraped off, put hot water into the second bucket and wash the wall off with the rags. Start at the top and go to the bottom. Keep washing until the water is clear. Don’t rush it. Make sure it is really, really clean. If you let the wall dry again, it will be harder to get the glue off, so finish one area at a time. Make sure all the glue is off the wall or the paint will peel wherever the glue is left on.

Once one area is clean, move to the next area. If the towels are sopping, throw them in a bucket and lay out more towels. You need towels that are dry enough to keep the water from running off the drop cloths and into your floor.

Wallpaper that comes off in tiny pieces or won’t come off at all and wallpaper that has been painted

Is the paper porous? Get it wet. If it absorbs water, you can treat it like the backing on strippable wallpaper. Follow the instructions for strippable wallpaper, skipping the part where you pull off the surface.

Even wallpaper that has been painted may still be porous, so try this first.

If the water does not soak in, and the surface doesn’t come off easily, it’s still not a disaster. You just need to be able to get the water behind the coated surface so that you can get the paper off the walls. Don’t just try to gouge it off. You will destroy your sheetrock.

You need to pierce the surface of the paper so that the water can get through it. Don’t use a wallpaper scoring tool. A crosscut saw works WAY better. It scores a lot more area a whole lot faster without damaging the wall.

Just scrape the saw kinda lightly over the paper, holding the saw vertically. You want to scratch horizontal lines through the surface of the paper. You don’t want to go all the way through or you will have to take the paper off in postage stamp sized pieces. If the lines are diagonal, the water will run down the line and into the floor. The more horizontal the scratch is, the more the water goes behind the paper.

Start at the top of the wall. Scratch horizontal lines, holding the saw against the wall vertically. It makes a lot of racket and the homeowner may think you are an idiot, but it really really is the easiest way to do this. You are scoring feet at a time.

Once there are plenty of scratches in the wallpaper, pick a spot to start. Put up a stepladder and lay out a lot of towels to catch the water that runs off the taped on thin plastic as you spray. You are working on about four feet of wall at a time.

Put Mr. Clean and hot tap water into the pump sprayer. Just follow the proportions on Mr. Clean. Pump it up and spray the wall, starting at the top.

It’s gonna take a lot of time for the water to soak through, but it will. Don’t start gouging. Just spray and wait and I promise you, it will soak through the surface and into the backing. The backing will hold it like a sponge. Then the glue that is holding the paper to the wall will absorb the water and the paper will just wipe off the wall. Give it time. Let the water work. The more you rush it the harder you will work, the longer it will take and the more you will damage the wall.

If you have scored it right, the paper will come off in rather big pieces, still held together by the backing. If it doesn’t move, spray it and wait again. When it is ready, you can wipe the paper and glue off the wall. Just smear it off and put it into a bucket. If there is a lot of glue or if the backing disintegrates, use a plastic scraper. Scrape the gunk off the wall and then scrape the scraper off into a bucket.

Don’t go too fast. Finish one area at a time. If it starts getting difficult, spray it with hot water and Mr. Clean and wait again before continuing. I stick with everything I can reach at the top before I move the stepladder, then work on everything below that.

Once you have most of the gunk off the wall, put hot water into the second bucket and wash the wall off with the rags. Start at the top and go to the bottom. Keep washing until the water is clear. Don’t rush it. Make sure it is really, really clean. If you let the wall dry again, it will be harder to get the glue off, so finish one area at a time. Make sure all the glue is off the wall or the paint will peel wherever the glue is left on.

Once one area is clean, move to the next area. If the towels are sopping, throw them in a bucket (or the washer) and lay out more towels. You need towels that are dry enough to keep the water from running off the drop cloths and into your floor. You would not believe how gluey that water is and what a mess it can make, so keep it contained.

This is the messiest kind of wallpaper to remove. You will use a lot of water and a lot of towels. If you are at home, when you finish an area, you might want to throw the towels in the washer, then any washed towels into the dryer so you have enough towels to keep up.

Foil Wallpaper

Try to pull some of the foil off the wall. Some foil is fabric backed and comes right off. Some is strippable and the surface peels off. But a lot of it is so thin and the backing is so thin that even if you score it, you cannot get enough water to soak in to get the foil off the wall.  So don’t even try. It will just damage the walls and you will have to repair them.

The foil is the wall. Make sure it is clean, then you can just prime over it and hang new wallpaper. It’s best if you make sure the seams aren’t in the same place. Foil that you have despaired of getting off the wall might be pulled up by the new wallpaper as it dries if the seams are coincidentally in the same place. Sad sad experience.

If you are going to paint, be sure it is really smooth. Sand anything you need to, spackle, prime and paint. Make sure you use a good primer. Foil is shiny and if you don’t prepare, the print will show through or the paint will flake off.

Is It Easier To Use a Steamer?

No. A steamer is heavy and a real workout to move around. Steam can burn you and really burning hot water runs down your arms.

Some people really like using them. And I have used them. I do not find any benefit.

Hey, I’m not watching you. If you have one and you want to try, go for it. But I would certainly not rent one. And if you try it, be careful. You can get burned using a steamer.