Wallpaper Removal in the Hallway & Dining Room

Today I took down the hallway wallpaper, and I will admittedly say that I was expecting it to take me at least a day to complete. In the Sloan Road House, we had a disaster of a time removing wallpaper in the bathroom. The previous owner had PAINTED over the wallpaper creating a seal between the wall and the wallpaper. After many hours of labor, we had to call in a handyman who did an equally poor job of fixing the problem. All in all it was a bad experience, so when I saw this house had wallpaper I was less than thrilled. The other factor that concerned me is the house is over 50 years old, and I did not know when the wallpaper was placed. Newer wallpapers peel off the wall easily, while the older stuff usually takes a wallpaper steamer and some tedious labor to remove. LUCKILY mine was the former! I was able to remove the hallway wallpaper in ONE HOUR!

THE CULPRIT: 

Supplies: 

I did not have a spray bottle so I took the sprayer off one of my window cleaners, and used the bottle of almost empty Palmolive to hold warm water and a small amount of soap.

And of course, a glass of wine and Pandora tuned to The Lumineers.....and a scraper!

The top layer of wallpaper peeled off by hand without any water. Then I sprayed the backing with the warm water & soap mixture and let it stand for 5 minutes, while I would tear down more of the top layer. Here you can see where I have removed the top layer, and sprayed the backing. 

Next I took the scraper to the soaked backing which revealed gray paint...

not too far from the color I want the walls to be!

ONE HOUR later... to my amazement... I was done!

Before

After

Before

After

Up next, the dining room...

under the chair rail in the dining room is the most interesting selection of wallpaper. So interesting, that my friend Sydney went to touch it thinking it was some kind of carpet! 

Needless to say, this area of wallpaper did not come off as easily and I had to enlist some help.

Using this tool, I scored the wallpaper and then soaked it in the same soapy water solution from earlier. 

So many teensy tiny pieces of paper left on the wall...ugghhhh

This is how far I got before quitting...

I was so SICK of de-wallpapering at this point. It was not going half as well as the hallway. So, I enlisted Ty to help me. Turns out, the secret is not the scoring tool but to SOAK the wallpaper with water and let it sit before trying to pull it off. Ty had the room cleared of wallpaper in no time!

And that, my friends, ends the de-wallpapering sage in this home! 

Now its time to paint!