Steamer is the only way to go--use a paper tiger first and then lots of steam. I used a one-inch scraper thing (putty knife?) and it seemed to work ok...any wider than that and it seemed to dig into the wall. It is easily one of the WORST projects in old house repair, in my opinion! Good luck!
-Sarah

Yes, do get a steamer. I had to do 5 rooms and it was the only thing that really worked.

thanks. i'm off to buy one now. this has been a real chore wetting and scraping and it's just not doing the trick and i realize it's because of the paint.

when we were kids, my parents purchased an old victorian (which i would love to get my hands on and bring back to original) and (no child labor laws then i guess LOL) we scraped room after room after room. i always hated that job!

maryanne

I hope I'm not too late with my two cents:

I recently had a very similar situation - the whole top floor was papered with some nasty kind of paste that just wouldn't let go. I got one of those little wagner steamers, and it did a pretty good job, although progress was pretty slow.

Then I hit a section that was even WORSE - you had to steam and steam and steam and even then it was tough scrapping. Progress slowed to a crawl and I was desperate for something to help me out. Out of desperation, I picked up some "dif" at the homecenter, with the thought that if I soaked with that first, it might speed up the steaming a bit.

Well, shocked is the best way to describe how I felt when I tried scraping a bit (before even steaming) after soaking with the dif (mixed with hot water) for a few minutes. It wasn't easy, but it actually came off without even steaming.

So I kept at it, scoring, spraying, scraping, they spraying a little more, etc, and the bottom line is I finished off the rest of the floor in one day! I had spend at least three days steaming to get half done, then a day with the dif to get the other (really tough) half done.

I was shocked by this result, since everyone told me that steaming was the only way to get the tough stuff. I will say that the scraping was not quite as easy as with well-steamed material, so your hands and fingers will be sore afterward, but you can really cover some square footage using the dif method. And I only used about a pint of the concentrate for the whole thing (mixed with hot water in a sprayer).

So if you get desperate as I was, give that stuff a try. I wish I had the fifty back I spent on the little steamer and just picked up a gallon of dif to begin with.

What is under the wallpaper?
If it is drywall you are pretty stuck with moisture and scrapping.
If it is a plaster wall you can use a 4 inch wide razor blade scrapper and go through just about all the layers at once.
There will be a minimum of backing from the first layer on the wall that will come off with water and DIF, at the most.

Here is a link to the BEST wallpaper solution out there

http://safeandsimple.com/new/Main.htm

Here is a link that might be useful: removal

"Here is a link to the BEST wallpaper solution out there"

It is unlikely to work on painted wallpaper any better than competing products.
Once a layer of paint is applied it is very difficult to get good penetration to the glue layer with anything.

Try the razor scraper if it is over plaster -- that's all I have used and it works well.

It is unlikely to work on painted wallpaper any better than competing products.
Once a layer of paint is applied it is very difficult to get good penetration to the glue (paste) layer with anything.

Use a paper tiger first

Here is a link that might be useful: tiger

thanks again for all the responses and assistance. i did purchase one of those wagner steamers. brian, even my brother said "why didn't you get dif".

the steamer isn't my method of choice, but it is working in the areas where there was no budge.

there are what appears to be two different layers of paper over plaster. however, on top of the paper is a coat or two of paint. i can see two different blues in some areas, so i assume two coats of paint.

there are some areas that the paper is coming off in large pieces (and some small) by getting the scraper under it. it would be an easy job if it all happened this way, but luck wouldn't have it. so i'm going around the room and getting those pieces off as the first stage. i haven't covered the one flat wall, i'm dreading that one.

i did try the steamer in a few places and it works, it's just a total PITA and after a while my arm are killing me. i was thinking of taking it back, but decided because there is wallpaper in most of the rooms (painted, i might add) i'll hold on to it as it will be a necessary tool.

maryanne

I personally had limited success with Dif and with steamers. The one thing that did work was ammonia. I diluted it a bit, but not a bunch... be careful if you try it and make sure the room is very well ventilated (I also used a respirator). If you can score the layers near the top of the wall, then spray the ammonia into the cut, it should start to loosen the glue. Once the paper started, I just kept adding more ammonia as necessary and working downwards.

Removing painted wallpaper is a horrible job and I personally would like to string up wallpaper painters by their toes!! :)

GP

When I removed our wallpaper I tried Dif, but it was in the summer and dry here in So Cal so the Dif dried on the wall too quickly before it could really work well. The steamer was the only thing that really worked for that reason. I don't remember it being hard on my arms. Just hold it in one spot for maybe 20 sec. (it's been awhile, so I don't remember exactly- whatever works) then remove it and scrape that area, then move on to the next part. It is slow and boring work but kinda satisfying to reach a patch of paper that comes off in a larger piece.
I actually got into it after awhile in a zen sort of way. :)

I had to remove about 14 layers in each of the oldest rooms of my house--a lot of paper to deal with! It's not easy no matter what you do, but I used a razor scraper to take off the painted over paper, and then DIF rolled on with a paint roller to get subsequent layers of unpainted paper off. The DIF works best if it's hot to warm, so don't make up too much at a time. I tried the paper tiger scoring tool but I found it unsatisfactory in that it left tiny score marks on the underlying plaster in spite of my best efforts to avoid that. I did save good scraps of the very earliest papers used on the house. Some were very interesting, a lot of coordinating borders were employed, and it was fun to see the changing styles and quality of papers over time.

well, i'm almost done the paper removal. it's been a long and arduous process. i've soaked the paper, i've used DIF and i'm using a steamer. in some areas, it's a breeze to remove and in others, i could curse more than i already do!

i don't feel the dif was worth my money. with all the applications i put on the wall, using a sprayer as well as a roller, on a scored wall, it didn't work any magic. it really seems to be hit or miss with this stuff and every little condition matters with this product.

i'm working in sections, so as not to drive myself insane and making sure that i complete a realistic section, which is working for me. another day or so and i'll be ready to scrub the walls down and patch. then it's on to the paint removal on the trim/woodwork, but that's a whole other post.

maryanne

By the time you run a paper tiger (or any of its kin) over the wall surface you could have scraped with a 4 inch razor scraper and been done with the job.

They have a limited utility for drywall that has been papered and then painted, but are a waste of time on plaster.

The 4 inch razor works dry and it is much easier to clean up the mess afterwards also.

thanks brickeye, but these were painted over wallpapered plastered walls. if it had been new drywall, it would have already been to my liking.

maryanne