Decorating the walls of a room with beautifully printed wallpaper is better than just painting it with a subtle plain colour. With so many varieties of wall papers available in the market these days, there is no dearth for interesting ideas and ways to do up your rooms. Wallpapers are gorgeous to look at and new improvements have been made to stick them up with ease and convenience. But the problem arises when you want to redecorate the room. Painting over it or pasting new sets of wall paper over it make matters worse. Removing wall paper can be a messy affair and most of the people choose not to do it because of the hard work involved. Once you manage to strip off the old wallpaper, the glue still remains on the walls. This can be removed by following some basic steps listed below:
Complexity level: Easy
Time required: About an hour
Resources required:
1. Bucket
2. Warm/ Hot water
3. Plastic covering/ towels
4. Sponges
5. Liquid detergent
7. Scraping tool
Instructions:
1. Preparation:
- Remove furniture around the area for easy movements.
- To prevent your floor from getting dirty, place large plastic coverings or towels on the ground just below the wall you will be working on. You can also use both for extra protection.
- The sheets or towels are likely to move around, so taping them down with nails around the edges would be a good idea.
- Fill the bucket with water, hot enough for you to handle. The hotter the water, the easier it is to get the glue out.
- Add some liquid detergent or any soapy ingredient to water and mix well.
2. Scrubbing:
- Soak the sponge in hot water and dab on to the walls generously.
- Work in smaller areas to make it more effective and convenient for you.
- Leave the wall soaked for a few minutes to let the soapy water work.
3. Scraping:
- If the glue proves to be too strong then use a scraping tool to gently release the glue from the wall.
- If the glue hasn’t softened enough, re-soak the area once again using the sponge and wait for another 3 to 5 minutes.
- Try to scrape off the stubborn glue and continue the process till the glue is soft enough to be removed.
4. Cleaning:
- Once you have managed to remove all the glue paste, it is time to give one final wash down.
- Empty the hot soapy water from the bucket and refill it with clean, fresh water,
- Using a new set of sponge, wash down the entire wall again. This time with not so much effort as you are just removing the soapy water from the walls.
- If the water gets too soapy, replace with fresh water and continue the process till you finish the entire area.
- Leave it to dry.
Frequently asked questions:
1. Is there any other solution that can be used instead of detergents?
Yes, one of the easiest and economical replacement of detergent is vinegar. This is less toxic and cheaper. Another ingredient is baking soda. Add about one table spoon of baking soda to about a bucket of water and scrub away.
2. How do I avoid damaging the wall too much?
Usually a bit of damage happens to the wall while scraping it down. Make sure you don’t use a sharp scraper that will leave gauges on the wall. You can also use a plastic spatula for this purpose to cause less damage. Repainting, re-plastering and sand papering it would also help to fix a damaged wall.
3. Is it ok to put a new batch of wallpaper over the old one?
Ideally it is not ok as it can make an already bad situation worse. It can be a problem when you want to paint the wall as it would require lots of coating which is time consuming. You may also not get the desired effect by painting over wallpaper. Other than this, adding more layers of paper over one, makes it look bulky.
Quick tips:
1. If your water solution gets cold after a while, replace with hot water as cold water will not work its way through to the glue. The hotter the water, the softer the glue would become.
2. Do not throw water down your sink as it can clog the pipes. Throw it outside or down a toilet if you have used non toxic ingredients.
3. If you are working with multiple layers of wallpaper, start with each layer rather than stripping off the entire thing at one go.
4. You can also fill a pump sprayer with warm water and use that instead of dabbing with a sponge cloth. It may prove to be a bit expensive, but definitely less time consuming.
Things to watch out for:
1. When you heat water for scrubbing, make sure it is of comfortable temperature. It can burn your hands otherwise.
2. Soaking the walls with too much water can make it spongy and likely to create drywall damage.
3. Water dripping from the walls can make the plastic covers and towel on the floor wet, in turn making them slippery and dangerous.
