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How To Remove Wallpaper


You are finally ready to redo your old family room and bring it to this century but where to start? How do you get rid of that ugly old wallpaper that covers the walls? You could hire a professional or you could tackle this project yourself and save that money for some new decor. I don't know about you but I would want to save that money and get that new rug I have had my eye for the past month.

Surprisingly, wallpaper is not that difficult to remove especially if it was applied correctly and there are plenty of tools out there that you can rent or buy to make your project even easier.

One popular options to remove wallpaper is to steam it off. Wallpaper steamers are fairly easy to use and inexpensive to rent but before you run over to rent a steamer you want to make sure to prep the room first. We recommend covering all electrical outlets and laying a drop cloth down to protect your floors.

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Once this is complete it is time to get started. The first thing you will want to do is score, or make tiny holes in the old wallpaper. You can rent a wallpaper spike to help you do this. This will help the moisture from the steamer get under the wallpaper to help loosen it from the wall. While you are doing this you may want to turn on the steamer and have it start heating up (note: sometimes the steamer will spit out water as it heats up. Have a towel handing to soak up the excess water). Once the steamer is ready you will want to hold it on the wallpaper long enough for the steam to penetrate the wallpaper and start to loosen the glue from the wall. Make sure not to keep the steam pad on the wall too long or it will start to damage the drywall under the wallpaper.

As the wallpaper starts to loosen from the steam you will want to use a scrapper to help pull off the wallpaper. Avoid using your hands to do this because the steam will have caused the glue to be very hot and could potentially cause burns.

After all the wallpaper is removed you will want to clean up and clean off the walls.

Tools Used:

Wallpaper Spike

Wallpaper Steamer

Scrapper

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