UNHANGING PAPER
The wall in this room that is covered with wallpaper is really starting to get on my nerves, so let's get rid of it. We must first determine the type of wallpaper we have here. There are three types of wallpaper common to residences. They are, fabric backed, solid vinyl and vinyl coated. Vinyl coated is the most widely used and of course the most common.
Wallpaper of the fabric backed and solid vinyl variety are usually dry strippable and do not cause a lot of grief.
Starting at the corner I'm going to pick and pull the paper away from the wall, Just as I thought..Vinyl coated. These papers usually can not be removed in one step, don't despair, we'll get there.
First let's dry strip the wall, that is, remove all the paper we can without wetting it. Notice how the vinyl face of the paper comes off leaving the paper backing.....this is good. Now that we have removed all the facing that will come off let's proceed to phase two.
Next we need to wet the wall with something that will break down the bond in the glue. There are several wallpaper stripping solutions on the market but it has been my experience that few work better than simple laundry fabric softener and white vinegar.
I have filled our five gallon bucket about half full of water and added a cap full of fabric softener along with a cup of white vinegar. Hang the roller screen inside the bucket, attach our half inch nap roller cover to the roller frame and install the roller extension pole. Now we are ready to go... oops almost... Turn OFF the electric power breaker to the room, this is located in the main house breaker box.
Do not proceed until you find the breaker box and turn off the power to this room.
This can get messy so I'm going to roll up some of these old bed sheets and place them on the floor along the base of the wall.
Next dunk the roller into the solution , roll off the excess on the screen and start rolling the wall. Start in the middle, go up to the top and back down to the base of the wall. Remember the object here is to saturate the paper backing technique is not important.
After the entire wall is covered it is time to wait. That's right, let's wait about ten minutes for the solution to work.
It's working, I can tell by the air bubbles forming in the paper. We can now begin to scrape off the paper with the four inch putty knife, again, technique is not important here.
Now that most of the paper is removed I can use a hand sponge to soak what remains around the edges. If we were going to repaper this wall I would not worry to much about the glue residue. Since we are painting, it has got to go.
I've mixed a fresh solution of water and fabric softener, with the hand sponge I'm simply going to wash down the wall. This should remove the remaining glue residue.
We could have used a garden pump sprayer to soak the wall instead of the bucket and roller, it is less messy, but my wife had it on weed killing duty.
For further information on different paper and situations see special problems at the back of this book.
