Removing Wallpaper from Plaster Walls

A new wallpaper can convert the dull boring walls of your house into attractive ones. It can give a fresh lease of life to the interior designing of the house. To achieve this new look of the house, the first thing that needs to be done is removing wallpaper from plaster walls. You can make the laborious task hassle free by making some preparations beforehand. Keep all the furniture at one place away from the wall. You can gather them at the center of the room and cover them up with plastic sheets. Remove all the wall hangings and other such wall decorations from the wall. Keep the electricity of the room switched off to ensure safety.

How to Remove Wallpaper from Plaster Walls?

There are some small tools which you should keep ready with you when you are going to remove wallpaper from plaster walls. They are sandpaper, putty knife, razor scrapper and scoring tools. You need one or more of these tools while using any of the following techniques.

Dry-Stripping: Removing wallpaper by using this technique is possible only if the wallpaper is strippable. Loosen each of the strips of the wallpaper from any one corner of the wall using a putty knife and then pull it off slowly keeping the wallpaper at an angle of 15 degree with the underlying wall. Most of the time, it happens that the top layer of the wallpaper comes off and the paper backing is left behind. Check out if that backing paper can be peeled off or not. If yes, then you have to follow the same method to strip off the paper.

Use of Wallpaper Removal Solvent: This technique is most effective in removing non-strippable wallpaper. It can also be used to remove the backing paper left after removing the top layer of the wallpaper. Divide the wall into small sections and soak one section at a time with warm water and wallpaper removal solution. The chemicals present in the solution will soften the glue of the paper. As a result, gentle scraping of the soaked paper will strip off the wallpaper easily. If the wallpaper is made up of some nonporous material like vinyl, you have to make perforations on the surface of the paper with the help of coarse sandpaper or some perforating tool. This will ensure penetration of the liquid solution which in turn will loosen up the glue.

Use of Wallpaper Streamer: This is a device which is used for the purpose of wallpaper removal from plaster walls. If you do not have a wallpaper removal streamer at home, you can avail it on a rental basis. It consist of a hose through which hot steam is sent to a metal plate. Hot steam must be applied from the top of the wall. When the metal plate is pressed on the surface of the wall, the steam penetrates into the wallpaper and the paper as well as the underlying glue becomes soft. Take a razor scraper and scrape off the loose wallpaper. Now move on to the adjacent part and follow the same procedure. Wallpaper streamer can remove the wallpaper even from the most stubborn areas. However, it has to be handled very carefully because the condensed hot water from the plate can drip off and may cause burns.

After removing the wallpaper, you have to wash off the walls thoroughly with warm water and damp sponge in order to clear off any remaining pieces of paper from the plaster wall. It is natural to get some scratches or minor damages on the wall surface while removing old wallpaper from plaster walls. You should repair those damages before putting a new wallpaper.