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need help with problems incurred by removing wallpaper

17 years ago

I am removing old wallpaper and would like to paint the walls. When I remove the old wallpaper it takes chips of paint off with it leaving an unsightly texture on the wall surface. How do I fix the wall surface so that it is smooth again? I do not want to sand because it is too dangerous. Is is ok to plaster or spackle over the chipped paint when the walls are made of drywall?

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Comments (6)

steve_o
17 years ago
You can use a spackle on defects on a drywall surface. But spackling almost certainly will require some sanding anyway. Why do you consider sanding "too dangerous"?
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PRO
Christopher Nelson Wallcovering and Painting
17 years ago
http://www.wallpaperinstaller.com/wallpaper_stripping.html
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Karen: which technique are you doing? Textured wallpaper over old wallpaper? Or one of the others? Rereading my post (after getting some sleep) it reads more like I am asking about texturing with drywall compound (like imitating venetian plaster, or a tuscan stucco look). PLEASE come back and tell me how it went! I have seen the paper bag technique done on home improvement shows. ItÂs actually simpler. Dipping in poly would be very messy and sticky. You adhere the paper with latex glaze or acrylic matte medium. Then cover with the same clear liquid to seal it in before painting. My hesitation with doing that is if someday down the road you didnÂt want such a texture, you could NEVER get it off. The entire room would have to be skimcoated by someone with the skills to get it really flat and smooth. I donÂt think I want to go that route. At least with drywall compound texturing it could be sanded off smooth easily.
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You need to have patience and do the removal slowly. I've removed several rooms of wallpaper where the walls were not prepped or primed before the wallpaper was put up. 1. If you use a paper tiger to score the paper before removing, make sure you don't score too heavy. A heavy hand will perforate all the way down to the paper on the wallboard itself, so use a light hand if you're doing this. 2. Remove all the paper that you can dry, by just pulling off the top layer. This should leave a paper wallpaper backing layer on the walls. 3. I've used two different solutions in a spray bottle and both worked wonderfully : powdered dishwashing detergent in a spray bottle with very hot water. Spray on the wall allow the backing to get wet, scrape it off with a scraper -- this loosens the glue and the paper comes off cleanly. You have to have the patience to let the stuff work though, don't start scraping til the solution has a chance to dissolve the glue. another option is fabric softener in a spray bottle with very hot water -- this works the same way as the dishwashing detergent above but is much easier on your hands and also leave a more pleasant smell in the home. Using either of these techniques should make it easy to remove the wallpaper with the least amount of damage to the walls.
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Last night I finished removing all the wallpaper. I scored it, sprayed with water and a little dish detergent, scraped, and pulled. I don't think that this stuff would ever have disintegrated. If I sprayed and came back 5 minutes later, it was dry. I could not see any way to saturate it, but I kept spraying as I worked on it. Most of it came off OK, but there are a lot of places where the top layer of drywall came with it. The drywall guy is coming tomorrow and I'm hopeful that he can fix it. I am glad that I removed it, especially since I found a small spot of mold. I also took a ceiling sample for asbestos testing even though the guys working on my house didn't think it was necessary. I hope they are right, but $95.00 is a small price for peace of mind. I'll give another update after the next step. Thanks for all the suggestions!
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holly123
17 years ago
I am stripping wallpaper on walls that have not been prepared for wallpaper. Are there any tips on easy removal ? It has been very hard and it is taking a long time.
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worthy
17 years ago
Lots of soapy water!

On several homes I renoed, the progress was so slow removing wallpaper that it was cheaper to pull down the rotten plaster and lathe and re-drywall. So we did.
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jegr
17 years ago
Lots of soapy hot water applied under pressure!
We have a small pressure tank (the kind designed for spraying plants in the garden). Filled with hot soapy water and sprayed against the wallpaper, it penetrates and after about 15 minutes the wallpaper falls off, several layers at a time!. Sometimes I need to get at difficult spots again.
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scott2006
17 years ago
The problem is if you have dry wall underneath the paper. You wind up taking the drywall outer paper off. If it is too hard to remove. The allturnative can be to use a special paint to seal the paper that is there and then prime and prepare the wall properly for new paper ...or paint. That's what I did in my bathroom. The paper that won't come off thus become part of the drywall.
If you have a plastered wall you can steem it off. or use ziff.
Good Luck
Scott
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