I'm helping my GF renovate her kitchen after her daughter almost burned it down.

The builders put wallpaper over drywall with no preparation.
How do you get it off without ruining the wall? It looks like the drywall paper is coming off with the wallpaper.
We want to be able to paint the walls. Will that even be possible without having to replace the drywall?

Danny

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You're probably screwed on this one. You can try steam but I doubt it will release the paste before it saturates the sheetrock.

Any renovator shudders when they see wallpaper or paneling. An old saying in the remodel business is,"Wallcoverings hide a multitude of sins". Ya never know what you'll find behind it.

You'll probably either have to; a: strip the rock down to studs and re-rock, b: overlay the rock with a thin 3/8" rock or c: re-paper.

You ever wonder why contractors charge about 15K for a kitchen remodel?

Go to Home Depot or a paint store, maybe Sherwin-Williams, and ask them. I think there is a softener that you can roll on the walls and it will make the paper removable.

Yeah you are screwed on this one its going to be easier to rip down and replace the drywall than it will be to get the wall paper off helped my uncle redo his living room same setup and by the time we were done the wall was so gouged and torn up we had to rip down and replace everything.

I say rip it off after a soak, repair any major problems and do a Venetian Plaster finish.

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Paint over the wallpaper. If the wallpaper wont take paint, put up wallpaper that will take paint.

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I had a similar situation. I built my own house so I guess I was the dumbass builder. I knew not to put wallpaper on bare drywall, but I thought a coat of primer would suffice. Wrong!

When I tried to remove the paper about 10 years later, it was impossible to take off the wallpaper without gouging the drywall paper. I tried the paper tiger and at least 3 different stripper products.

paper tiger


http://www.acehardwareoutlet.com/(g4ohzpzkz25evs551nrxpj55)/productDetails.aspx?SKU=998009052

I eventually had to skim coat the entire wall. I really suck at drywall skills so I eventually hired someone to finish the job at a reasonable price.

I did not rent a steamer. Not sure if that would have worked, but the quote from the guy to finish the job was so good I didn't pursue it.

If I ever do wallpaper again, I will be sure to use wallpaper sizing first.

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When our house was built, they papered everything - some with prep and some without. I've had to remove it all unfortunately...

Go buy this thing called a "paper tiger". It perforates the wall paper and you can spray release on the paper and it will soak through to the adhasive. Have one person work ahead with the paper tiger and the release and the other spray more release and peel the wallpaper off in stages.

The key is to get the wallpaper really damp. Use a garden sprayer and don't rush the job. Spray and wait about 20 min or so but don't wait too long though as it may start to dry again. Sometimes a couple applications of release are needed.

Edit: Ha, Sunydog was posting the same thing as me at the same time...

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We've got plaster-over-lath but in our dining room they put up a sheets of masonite and wallpapered over it. Well the 50's wallpaper was hideous and whatever glue they used is apparently better than the stuff they use to affix the tiles to the space shuttle because nothing would take it off. Not having the money at the time to do a full renovation and not knowing what laid in wait behind the masonite, we just primed and painted the wallpaper. If the seams are tight you probably wouldn't even notice.

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Sometimes you can peel off the vinyl upper portion of the wallpaper and leave the paper/adhesive layer behind. If you can do this, it's easy to remove the remaining paper/adhesive using a peeling chemical. By removing the upper vinyl portion, you are able to access the paper directly and the chemical remover can easily saturate the remaining glue/paper. There is a good one that has active enzymes in it that really does the job well. However, it requires a fair bit of water to saturate the paper/adhesive properly and I think you will damage your drywall in doing so.

Sadly, I think the best recourse may be to tear the existing drywall down and install new drywall. It could be a good time to examine the walls for any remaining damage and/or re-route and inspect the wiring. For a new kitchen reno, you should add GFI plugs anyway.

Good luck!

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I've been quite successful with steam. Where hot water will cause too much saturation, the steam gets the glue up to a temperature where it falls apart fairly easily with a scraper. Just don't use a single edge razor blade scraper...........it'll dig into the sheetrock.

I'm sure there are some glues that won't respond to the steam.........but, most wallpaper past will succumb fairly fast.

Scratching the paper to allow the steam to penetrate is advantageous.

Fabric softener and hot water is a cheap, homebrew wallpaper remover

My uncle bought a house this summer that had just about everything on the plaster walls you can name, rock, paper, paint x 12, etc. Also the old plaster was cracking and uneven in spots...since it was going to be a rental F it. We 3/8 waterproof sheet rocked over the whole damn thing. Trimmed it out and and used builders beige...looks really good!

Why waterproof you ask? Toughen it up for renters.

If you can I would re rock.

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well, even if you replaced the sheetrock, you will still need to tape the joins,sand,float it,sand some more and texture. so why not just remove as much as you can, rough up the remaining,float,texture and paint.

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That sounds pretty good. New rock will give the nicest finish, though skim coating the whole thing is an option, but making that look right might take a little professional experience.

OTOH, there's a product, I forget what it's called -- I have some at the shop, I'll look later -- it's designed to repair light paper damage to the surface of the rock so it can be painted. I used it once when I had to do a re-taping and mudding in a bathroom and I furred a little bit of the paper tape on sanding and I just wanted to finish it w/o 3 more coats of mud. The stuff worked fine.

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