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Removing textured wallpaper help

last year

last modified: last year

We bought our current house at the end of last year. It was built in 1960, but the previous owners have kept it in great condition and have done a lot of great upgrades already (screened in pourch, updated appliances, reinforced supports, etc), but there are a lot of upgrades we are planning to make.

Some stuff we will/have hired pros for (solar panel install, replacing all of the outlets to be 3 prong instead of 2 prong) and some stuff that we want to tackle on our own. One of those being this random textured wallpaper on only one side of the wall. Pretty soon after we moved in the cats started using it as a scratching post (despite having HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS worth of scratching posts and toys in their own special cat room).

This has kind of moved up the timeline for removing the textured wallpaper and repainting. I started to pick and pull at it a little bit to see how easily it would come up/what was under it. It seems like maybe paper covered drywall underneath? The wallpaper comes up real easily, the brown spots are part of the wallpaper. You can get a fingernail under it and start pulling it up with the rest of the wallpaper.

But the white part underneath is fuzzy. Do we need to just replace the fuzzy drywall or is there a primer we can put on it that will smooth it out?

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Comments (5)

clt3
last year
Too bad, looks like string cloth - not inexpensive! It’s a little hard to tell from your picture, but I’m pretty sure the white part is the back of the paper. A good wallpaper remover product and a wide blade scraper should take care of it.
Chelsea Ashe
Original Author
last year
Do you have any recommendations for wallpaper remover? It looks like WP Chomp is highly recommended when I do a search (also some people saying WD40, but I'm skeptical of that, haha).
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House was built in the 70s. I’ve already removed the wallpaper from the hallway, living room, kitchen, dining room, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and all hallways. There was even wallpaper on the ceiling in 2 rooms. Some of the rooms were easier than others, but I hadn’t encountered this level of damage to the underlying drywall before. Thanks all, for your comments. Sounds like there’s nothing I can do, just have to skim coat and sand before painting. Which I expected to have to do anyway. Just surprised by how much damage there is to the drywall. Good news is that after this room there’s just the half bath and laundry room left. Wish me luck! :)
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cat_ky
last year
If you can remove all the top paper, the bottom white is the backing, and you can spray it with warm water, and then it should all scrape off fairly easy. Once off, scrub the wall good, and make any repairs needed, and prime it good, and then paint it.
clt3
last year
Looks like chomp is the scoring device? That shouldn’t be necessary as I’m pretty sure this isn’t vinyl. I can’t specifically recommend a brand because it’s been a few years since I had to do this.
kudzu9
last year
If you want to make your life easier, rent a wallpaper steamer to remove the old paper. In a pinch, an old steam iron can provide the same effective method of removal.

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