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Issue removing wallpaper border

13 years ago

My son's room has a border that has been up for more than nine years (since we moved into the house). I am removing it so that I can repaint the room. I have two issues. 1) There was a second border underneath the first. It is difficult (read almost impossible) to peel the top layer off the second border so that I can safety wet and scrap off the under paper. 2) When I am able to pull off the second border it pulls off the paint too and in some places even the top layer of the dry wall.

My question is how do I fix this. I have provided a link to a picture of the wall. In the picture the moons and stars are the second border I still need to remove. The blue is the paint underneath. The white is the drywall. The manila color are places the top layer of drywall has pealed off too.

Thank you for your help.

Here is a link that might be useful: border issue

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Comments (7)

PRO
Christopher Nelson Wallcovering and Painting
13 years ago
Remove as much as possible, prime with Gardz, skim coat with joint compound, sand, skim again till smooth, sand, clean, apply Gardz again, paint.

Here is a link that might be useful: gardz
sumnerfan
Original Author
13 years ago
Thanks. I didn't know about Gardz but the rest was pretty close to what I expected. Wish me luck!
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Gad, I worked on this project again this weekend. It's worse than I originally thought. It's almost like there's Elmer's Glue on there or something - some places very thick. Tried goo gone and ammonia and got some of it off but not all. I did take some of the finish off the wall however. The part I started on is in a short hallway going to the bathroom. The wall in that area is slightly textured - the rest of the bedroom is not. I'm telling myself that maybe the rest won't be as bad - that's probably wishful thinking. I can't imagine why the previous owner did this. Any other border I've removed in this house was applied with wallpaper paste on a sized wall and it was a piece of cake to remove. Can't imagine what they were thinking when they did this glue job - or whatever it is.
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Try pulling just the border off without soaking it or using a stripper. Sometimes you can get the top part off and expose the backing under it and then you can just remove that by getting it wet. There is a good chance though that when you pull on the border, you will be pulling off the wallpaper too....that's just how it goes.
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If you do a search for border removal, you should get lots of posts--seems many people have this problem. From my own experience, first determine if the border will come off fairly easily by holding a wet sponge against it to slightly saturate & then try pulling any loose areas. What eventually worked for me, after using a paper tiger & removal gel, and a clothes steamer (not good-melted the paint), was just using a cloth & saturating the remnants of the border with Downy liquid fabric softener. Not sure if that's what did the trick, but it worked as well as anything else & smelled nice too! Just be prepared for possibly lots of tedious work--mine was like scraping confetti off the wall...scraping with my "Pampered Chef" pot scraper & fingernails. After it's all removed, cover with a coat of Gardz; this will prevent any residual glue from getting into your new topcoat. Happy scraping!
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I just did some border removal in the bathroom, used DH's conair fabric steamer, came off quicker and easier then I anticipated. It was easier with two people so I wouldn't tip the unit over.
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PRO
Christopher Nelson Wallcovering and Painting
13 years ago
Gardz can usually be found with wall paper supplies but no longer in the big box stores. If need be you can prime with a stain blocking OIL primer such as Zinnsers oderless oil primer
brendainnj
13 years ago
christophern, why is it necessary to apply Gardz a second time? Aren't you only sanding off a very small amount of the skim coat? I have a similar situation; I used the Gardz & skim-coated and was planning on priming the whole wall with BIN due to the NUMEROUS drywall repairs made. No good? Painting over wall with SW Cashmere in flat enamel.
PRO
Christopher Nelson Wallcovering and Painting
13 years ago
Bin would be over kill + it smells real bad. Most any good primer would work at this paint. You already have the Gardz, so why not use it? I would use the Gardz to seal up any paste you might have missed and also to seal up the joint compound patches.
brendainnj
13 years ago
OK, gotcha--I have the BIN as well (and more of it) and planned to use that since I only have a qt of the Gardz.
PRO
Christopher Nelson Wallcovering and Painting
13 years ago
Wear a respirator, open windows, use fans,burn incense, drink a couple martinis and maybe the smell will not affect you too much.

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