Remove painted over wallpaper from plaster walls

17 years ago

House built in 1915. Walls are plaster with paint over several layers (at least 2 or 3) of wallpaper. Seams of wallpaper show through the paint and paint is lifts off the wall in some places. We scraped the paint off of 2 walls in 1 bedroom (hard). Once down to old wallpaper spraying a a little hot water on the wallpaper let us easily get down to bare plaster. Next comes sanding, patching, sanding and priming for paint correct?

Please tell me there is an easier way to get painted over wallpaper off the walls.

Featured Answer

lobsterbird

17 years ago

Had some walls with so many layers of paper and paint, I used a scraper without wetting the paper, just to get the top layers off. Once I got down to the last couple of layers, I used a scorer, sprayed with warm water, waited a couple of minutes for it to soak in, then scraped. It took more brute force for the first round of scraping, but there was less gooey mess during spraying phase since fewer layers of paper remained on the wall. According to Molly, I've accumulated my share of good house karma!

It is truly a thankless job. After I finished stripping all the paper and repaired the plaster, my husband painted. Guess who gets all the compliments?

Tina

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Comments (11)

Carol_from_ny
17 years ago
Try a little fabric softener in the hot water it loosens the wallpaper paste.
If you can score the paper with a paper tiger so the water/softener can get underneath the paint and into the paper it might make it easier.
brickeyee
17 years ago
4 inch razor blade scrapper and a bunch of spare blades.
When you hit the right angle of the scraper it will split the last layer of wallpaper and everything else comes off in long strips. The hardest partis getting an edge to start working from.
The paint will crumble as the paper curls.
It is so much of a pig job it is very hard to find anyone to do it.
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Depends on the condition of your walls and the paper. No doubt, the ideal solution is to remove wallpaper whenever possible. Added layers of paper or paint on top of it will just add to any imperfections or problems and cause them to look worse or even for the paper to come off the wall. That's the real concern. If the paper can be removed, it is best to remove it and avoid a bigger pain down the road. Now, that said, I have removed a lot of wallpaper (kitchen as well as every bedroom and bathroom in this house for starters), but my last house had wallpaper that seemed to be superglued to the walls and we could not get it off without destroying the sheetrock. We tried every method known, then sought professional help. They told us to secure or remove any loose edges or corners we might find, float the wall by skimming with joint compound (primarily to smooth out any seam line but also for any torn corners or other imperfections), sand smooth, then paint with the original shellac KILZ. This is one time to not use the water based -- the shellac will go into that paper better and help bind it to the sheetrock. From that point on, you consider it part of the sheerock and move on. You notice I didn't list dining room of this house above? Well, it was fully wallpapered too -- we were just so eager to paint over the the pink paint that we took the outlet covers off and cut those in after the first coat instead of before. The pink paint was covering a pink floral -- it had been like the rest of the house! We sought out the seems and checked them, checked the corners and decided it was secure enough that we were going to leave it. That was 9 years ago. We recently did a wall repair, floated it and repainted -- still looks perfect. Since then, I've hear applying wallpaper and painting over it as a suggestion for creating a smooth, no-texture wall finish and wondered if that would work well if you use a permanent bond to the wall rather than a typical paste that is meant to be removed. Test the wall and the paper. Worst case, new sheetrock is not that expensive (it's the labor to float it that runs up the cost). You don't want anything underneath your new kitchen to cause problems down the road. If it's an open area where you would not have to remove anything to repair, then you are just taking chances with paint and inconvenience. If you have to disconnect, remove, take apart things, then you are talking about more expense, more inconvenience, and the risk of damage or replacement of other parts of your kitchen. Either way you go, proper wall prep is worth the time and hassle -- but that's temporary and the results will be good and can last a lifetime.
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yikes. Too bad you scored ALL of those walls. Either way it will be more work for you, so I would choose the smallest wall and lay on a thick primer coat, then repaint and see if that worked to hide the score marks. I'd also consider using a barely-textured paint I could live with that could cover/hide everything. Sorry I can't answer the question about applying a skim coat over it all.
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I also would love to remove paper from plaster walls in several rooms - but I'm afraid to... Long-ago PO's previously paneled over 2 rooms, (suspicious, much?), the only one without that "bandaid" has very thick paper - applied with at least a 1" overlap. It'd been painted over - & sprayed with what I assume was ceiling texture gunk? I scraped/sanded the hard scratchy bumps off & repainted. Both walls & ceiling have this paper - was this something sold for this purpose - to hide/cover, (or egad, "retain"?) crumbling plaster? I know it's probably not that bad - only other projects are keeping me from it, not fear, lol. On a side note... That's one more reason why plaster is better than drywall! I HAD to get rid of ugly wallpaper in a downstairs bath - tried an area & it pulled right off.. Good, right? Wrong. The floppers had put in drywall & papered directly to it without priming at all. Pulled a layer of "sheet" off the "rock", leaving a rough exposed-paper layer. Why go to the trouble to drywall, then apply (textured vinyl) wallpaper directly to it, so that removing the paper would literally destroy the walls? That's the difference between flippers & floppers. (Sorry for getting off topic & ranting a bit, but if it'd been plaster...).
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Hi--I would imagine it would be easier to remove wallpaper from plaster walls than sheetrock. Some people swear by wallpaper steamers, and if that sounds easiest to you then check it out. I've never used one before, so I can't say. My own experience removing up to 14 layers of old wallpaper from the plaster walls of our early 1890's home involved scraping off the outer layer(s) of stiff, painted-over paper with a razor scraper, and then using a warm solution of DIF wallpaper remover rolled on with a paint roller on the remaining layers, scraping it all off with a putty knife and razor scraper. It takes time, but it really depends on the papers/adhesives used and the condition of the underlying plaster. The remaining glue and remover residue is then washed off with TSP. Expect some cracks and other decay in the plaster, and understand that old plaster can look really-really bad and still be salvageable, depending on how much effort you want to put into it. Our repaired plaster walls have some imperfections, and I came to realize that it was unrealistic to expect that they'd ever have the perfectly smooth appearance of sheetrock walls, but I love them all the same. Good luck and don't get discouraged--old plaster walls that have been saved are a wonderful surface and you won't regret bringing them back.
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housekeeping
17 years ago
As brickeye so aptly stated this is a pig of a job. Sometimes people come and ask if it's OK to paint over their wallpaper as a quick fix. I usually advise them they're storing up extreme amounts of bad house karma if they do. (By removing painted wallpaper you are doing the reverse, I'm sure!)

However, I may be able save you one of the steps you listed. I don't think you will need to sand as the first step in your list. You may have to wash the walls, but shouldn't have to sand until you've done any necessary patching.

And as a previous poster noted you don't have to scrape the paint before stripping the paper just get a tool that perforates the whole mess and then remove paint and paper at once.

If you happen to have one, you might try using one of those cleaning steamers like a LadyBug or TidyVap. I have found them quite useful for cleaming up the remnants of paper that remain, if not the main stripping job.

HTH,

Molly
jcin_los_angeles
17 years ago
The easiest way: hire someone else to do it! Every wall and ceiling in the first and second floors of our big 1910 Craftsman house had multiple layers of wallpaper and paint. Probably about 4 each. There was no way we could have done that much on our own. After our contractor removed everything he discovered that the plaster was a mess and repaired it. What a mess that was! But the end result was lovely. (I did most of the interior painting.)
senorjosef
17 years ago
I agree w/prev poster, do a small single room first and see what shape your wall are in. Not worth stripping if you'll have to replace or skim coat anyways.

Re stripping, here's what worked for me:

Get on of these scrapers...

http://ace.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pACE2-960411reg.jpg

Get some FAST wallpaper remover (I like better than DIF)...

http://www.cornerhardware.com/images/18/18151.jpg

Mix the FAST w/hot water in a good heavy duty spray bottle. Mix it a little on the strong side. Let the spray penetrate for a few seconds, then scrape.

When you have all the old wallpaper off, you can wash the walls with a mild FAST solution to get all the glue off. Then wash again with something like Dirtex...

http://www.cornerhardware.com/images/20/20293.jpg

Because of the paint you may have use a paper tiger to score the paint and wallpaper to allow solutions to penetrate...

http://www.homeandbeyond.com/dynamic/prod-0074110-prod.jpg

Or if it's real bad, maybe a rent a steamer.
morgan88
17 years ago
my first job in this old house was to remove the painted over 4 layers of wallpaper in my son's room. i did the whole dif, paper tiger, scrape thing. got sick of always running out so i experimented w/ hot water and vinegar. this cheap ever ubiquitous mixture poured into a spray bottle worked better then the blue stuff.

now i am working on the same problem in the master bedroom only i stumbled upon a neat trick. scoring is a nasty job w/ the paint dust and that horrific sound. instead i took duct tape and randomly placed strips on the walls. next day, i yanked them off thus revealing old wallpaper that easily soaked up the hot vinegar mixture. this room has been less dusty and much easier.
senorjosef
17 years ago
I like that duct tape trick! Thanks for sharing!
gennyg
17 years ago
I removed wallpaper from a small bathroom with a steamer - worked great. When I looked at the walls in preparation for paint I noticed what looks like torn paper. Evidently a previous owner also removed wallpaper but couldn't get all of the paper backing off so decided to prime over it. Anyone have any recommendations for removing this?
hgolightly
17 years ago
I didn't remove the paint first. Perhaps I was lucky (sure was messy), but I scored the paper through the paint and most of it lifted off. The paint crumbled like mad, but it was better than scraping. Did you try that?

Good luck. It's a messy job!
Diggadoo
12 years ago
I moved into a 1945 Cape. In the entry, living room, and stairwell to the second floor was wallpaper. We scored the whole thing, then put on the gel. It would not come off. We tried vinegar. Nothing. Hot water. Nothing. We rented a steamer. It took 3 people an entire day and some serious hand pain to remove ONE wall. A small wall. They must have used superglue to put it up. We didn't have the time or energy to face the impossible job in the rest of the area, so we painted over it in desperation. I know it's terrible. Of course, we can see the score marks through the paint. I don't think removal is an option. It was a fool's errand before we painted over it. Can I skim coat over this? Any other suggestions (other than papering over it) for how to hide the score marks? They are on every square inch. Thanks.

Remove painted over wallpaper from plaster walls

lobsterbird

Comments (11)

Carol_from_ny

brickeyee

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