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Wednesday, 25 January 2012

That's a plan

So I had a plan. I was about to remove all the wallpaper from the office and then paint the walls. I knew that the wallpaper in the livingroom which I removed few years ago was on very tight, so I thought I was prepared. In the office there are two layers of wallpaper, the rosy one and under is a stripy one.

I watered the wallpaper with a pressure sprayer (hope you know what I mean, I have no idea what that thing is even in Finnish) and the top wallpaper, the rosy one, almost slide off. I was able to rip it out in whole sheets. It was amazing.

Then I watered the old wallpaper, the stripy one. I watered and tried to rip the wallpaper off, but it was very stuck. Then I watered some more and tried to scrape it off, that didn't work. I even borrowed a steamer meant for removing wallpaper from A's parents'. That didn't work either. After one evening of work and messing around with the steamer, this is all that I had done.


That looks just pathetic.

Then I started to think that I need to change my plan. According to Benita you can paint over wallpaper and eventhough I trust her to tell the truth I still hesitate. So since the rosy wallpaper comes out so easily I will remove only that and leave the stripy one be. I will spackle the edges and some holes and then paint. I know I could just paint right over, but I'm still afraid that since the top wallpaper can be removed so easily that it will start to remove on it's own once I wet it with paint.

So that's the new plan.

3 comments:

  1. If you would still like to try and remove it--try scoring the stripey paper so that the water can penetrate underneath the paper. As well, there are products especially designed for removing wallpaper--stronger than water--you could try that, with the scoring--too.

    On the other hand, if the paper is stuck down that well--then there's no harm in painting it!

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  2. Good luck. I hope it turns out.

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  3. Alana - I'm fairly certain it was completely soaked. I think the problem is that the wall itself is not finished in any way and the wallpaper is maybe glued on with something else than wallpaper paste. I might need some type of solvent to remove the glue and that does not sound easy or environment friendly. I think I would drive myself mad if I would try to remove it :) so painting over is the way to go.

    Megan - Thanks

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