Stripping? Is that legal?

     Stripping can be one of the tougher aspects of a paperhanging project. Often it is a very messy job involving smelly chemicals and hard physical labor. The bad news is most wallcovering manufacturers REQUIRE removal of old wallcoverings (read the instructions that came with your product carefully). The good news is there are some ways to make it easier.

Dry stripping

     Dry stripping is pulling the wallcovering off the wall without the aid of soaking solutions or a steamer. There are situations where dry stripping will work just fine. Unfortunately, most of the time, it does not do the whole job.

     Pick at one corner of your wallcovering until you can get a grip on it and pull it slowly at a 45-degree angle. Pay close attention to the wall behind it. Is it pulling off without damaging the wall behind it? If it is, continue to pull slowly at 45-degree angles until you have as much of the wallcovering off as possible. This requires great patience. Always keep the force of your pulling action close to the wall. Don't stand back and jerk on five foot long pieces.

     Did it pull off in tiny pieces at the corners and leave 98% of it on the wall? Forget dry pulling, you will have to soak it off.

     Did the surface of the sheetrock under the wallcovering tear (look for brown spots that are not smooth)? If so, stop pulling. At this point you have to make a decision. Either call a professional who knows how to strip for your situation with minimal damage or don't strip at all. The potential for damage to your walls can cost you more to repair than the total cost of your wallcovering.

     If you decide to go ahead yourself, you must prime the wallcovering with something your new wallcovering will stick to. Your local dealer will make recommendations for you. This also means that you must be sure the old paper is re-glued in loose areas and spackled where seams or rough spots might show through the new wallcovering.

     Hanging over old wallcoverings like this is a common practice even though the manufacturers do not recommend it. Why? Because most homes that have been built in the past thirty years are sheetrock, sometimes called gypsum board. New homebuilders are notorious for putting wallpaper up on unsealed sheetrock. Some builders use a cheap flat latex paint for a "primer" and that is just as bad. Wallcovering pastes soak right through the cheap paint and bond to the sheetrock.

     Either way, there are millions of new homes that have and will require extensive repairs if they are stripped. If the room is always going to be papered anyway and the old wallcovering is smooth and bonded extremely tight, it makes more dollar sense to do a good job of priming, spackling, and sizing over the old wallcovering.

Wet Stripping

•      If you have a peelable type of wallcovering, the face of the wallcovering will delaminate when you pull it. It will leave a paper substrate on the wall that looks like liner paper. Soak this substrate off with a stripping solution. There are some at your local dealers or you can order a superior stripping solution from Safe and Simple on the Internet.
  
       Only try to soak one wall at a time. Lay plastic along the baseboard and tape it to the baseboard with painter's tape. Lay dropcloths or towels over the plastic. You will be putting a lot of liquid on the wall so keep the floor below well covered.
  
       You can apply the stripping solution with a paint roller and frame or spray it on with a garden sprayer. Wet the wallcovering, let it soak, wet it again, let it soak, wet it again. Three soaks is the minimum for many wallcoverings. The more you soak, the less "elbow grease" will be needed to scrape it off the wall. Five to ten minutes of soak time in between wetting is usually adequate. Again, patience will save you a lot of work.
  
       If your wallcovering has a plastic face that the solution cannot penetrate, you may need to 'score' the wallcovering to allow the solution to get under it and go to work. You can score the wallcovering by sanding it with very rough 60 grit sandpaper or you can use a "Paper Tiger".  The Paper Tiger is a dangerous tool in amateur hands.  Since most homes have sheetrock walls, it requires an EXTREMELY light touch to perforate the wallcovering without damaging the sheetrock under it. 
  
       If that does not work, it is time for the steamer.  Steamers are a stock item at your local rental store. They will take off the toughest of wallcoverings, but they have drawbacks. It is very easy to get scalded and a buildup of steam in a room can have some undesirable effects, like loosening nails and drywall tape. Steaming is not recommended for the amateur.
  
       The smart way to deal with a wallcovering project is to call a professional EVEN IF YOU PLAN TO DO IT YOURSELF! Why? Because for as little as fifty dollars you can get a professional to come to your site, measure how much wallcovering you need, discuss your wallcovering and installation options with you, and test your stripping situation and tell you exactly how to do it for the best results. That is the deal of the century!
  
  You should ask these questions before you start:
  

• Do I know enough to proceed without professional advice?
  

• Will the room always be papered?
  

• What is under the wallcovering now?
  

• Can it be stripped without serious damage to the walls?
  

• Can new paper be put over the old?
  

• What are the costs for each choice?