Wallpaper Nightmare

Call Village Paint in Fayettville. My dad was an interior contractor and did almost all his supply needs there. They're an old established family owned buisness that knows EVERYTHING! tell them Jack Bennet's daughter told you to call

I have used fabric softener and water. Mix 1/2 and 1/2 in a spray bottle and spray it on and let it sit for a few minutes and the wallpaper should peel right off. It depends on how long it has been up as to how many times you might have to do the steps. But this does not damage the wall or the sheetrock under the wallpaper. Now it does not have to be the most expensive softener either. I bought some cheap stuff..
Good Luck and Let us Know exactly how it turns out.

A quick background on what I did...I got really mad one night and ripped all the wallpaper off the walls leaving the glue paper parts all over it. Yes, we had already planned to strip it anyway, I just took my frustrations out on the wallpaper- LOL so.......

We just stripped our bathroom a year ago and after frustration in scraping night after night someone told us.....

a couple TBSP Downy type fabric softener
Warm water in a spray bottle

Spray the wall and let sit about 5-10 min and wipe off with a wide putty knife type flat blade then use a sponge and rinse the sponge....doesn't harm the drains or wall, smells better than the chemicals and doesn't hurt your hands, either! Still takes some time but at least it all comes off. Wait about 3 days from the last spraying before painting or any other work on the walls to be sure it's all dry and clean from glues.

Whenever I remove wallpaper, I use pure Mr. Clean...no water added. It removes the paper and the glue while cleaning my walls at the same time. We learned this trick by total mistake too. My father in law was helping us to remove the wallpaper from the kitchen of a house that we were about to move in to. We told him that we left the wallpaper remover on the counter (Zap I think it's called). He accidentally picked up a bottle of Mr. Clean that I had poured but hadn't added water yet. It took the paper off in a quarter of the time than steaming and other products plus it didn't damage the walls like scoring did.

I sprayed a mixture of fabric softener and water onto the wallpaper, then let it sit for a minutes. The wallpaper peeled right off.
Good Luck!

I've used cheap liquid fabric softener diluted with warm water and a new putty knife. If she hasn't already scored the wallpaper with a "paper tiger", I'd suggest she do that before applying the fabric softener solution. There's also another possible reason that her wallpaper isn't letting go of the walls and that would be that the walls weren't primed before the wallpaper was apply to the walls. Usually the paper barrier on the sheetrock will start coming off with the wallpaper if they weren't prepared properly, so I'd have some spackle onhand just in case some patching is required. If all else fails, try renting a wallpaper steamer. I know thats more money, but she got to finish the job since she's already started. Good luck and update us on how the job's going.

I, like others I see, used a steamer. Ours was really stuck too when we bought our house. This helped, but it still took a while. We also tried the wallpaper solution you get at the store (I felt I mine as well be throwing water on the wall!). I also ripped about half of it down b/c I was pregnant and pissed off at it! Ha. Ha.

We moved into a 1958 home once that had a closed in garage lined with paneling that had been covered with wallpaper. It was curling and peeling.It was gross!I scraped as much wallpaper off as I could, but much of th epaste remained. We ended up applying wood filler directly over the walls,old paste and all. After the woodfiller dried we could have painted over it, but put up new wallpaper again. Another room in the same house had several layers of wallpaper;I was advised by my handyman to not even try removing it,but apply a slow drying plaster directly over it.Can't remember the actual names of products, but got everything at Home Depot;this was when my now 19 year old son was 4!The last room I mentioned was his bedroom; he helped in the process and I asked him to make a handprint in the paste in one corner before it dried. Hope I've helped

I used fabric softner (I think it was downey) and water solution. It dissolved the sticky. Good luck, I am sure it depends on the type of glue, etc.

J.

Hi, J.. How sweet of you to try to find help for your friend. My mother is a professional commercial painter, so I'll try to help.
Your friend is going to need the following items if she doesn't already have them:
-Dawn dish detergent
-Empty spray bottle
-A LOT of rags
-Putty knife or scraper (metal is better but harder to use for a novice)
-Fine grade sandpaper and sanding blocks
-Sheet rock mud
-Patience and stamina (LOL)
Mix up a solution of warm water and dish detergent, and put it in your spray bottle.
Pick an area of the wall slightly out of view to practice on.
Saturate about one square foot of the wall with your water bottle. Allow a minute or so for the wall to really wick in the moisture as this is going to weaken the bond between the wall and the glue. Try rubbing the glue off with the rags. If that doesn't work, you're going to need to use the scraper. This is where it gets tricky because once the sheetrock is wet, it becomes very soft and you're going to have to be careful not to gouge it.
Once you feel like you've mastered the technique, it's time to move on to the rest of the room. Start with an area at the very top of the wall and work your way down to the floor in strips. I like working in strips because the moisture you apply to the top of the wall runs down and preconditions the area below. (The top of the wall is always the harderst part.) Work your way around the room using this method.
Once you're done, you may still have a little glue on the walls and probably some gouges, that's normal. Give the walls about 24 hours to dry completely.
Once they're dry, you're going to mud any areas where you have imperfections (gouges, nail holes, etc.) Give the mud plenty of time to cure (times can vary depending on the weather).
Once your mud is dry, you're going to sand down the entire wall with your fine grade sandpaper. This should take care of what little bit of glue is left.
Now that your sanding is done, you'll need to wipe down the walls one more time (to get rid of the dust) before you can paint.
Even if she just wants to leave the walls a flat white, she should still paint because removing the glue has probably also removed a lot of the primer that was in place before the walls were papered.
Hope that helps. Good luck!

My friend recommends fabric softener sprayed on, let it set for a period of time, then removes easily. At least that is what she said. I have not tried it yet.

Hi there, J.:

I had the same problem that your friend is experiencing a few years ago and I tried everything from store-bought solutions to spray on and wait til it soaks in. And, used some sort of hand held device that has sort of "rolling blades" on the underside that score the wallpaper for supposedly easy removal. But, I can tell you that this is a long and tedious job and if that wallpaper has been up for a number of years, there may be damage to the wall trying to get the paper off. It can be done but it can take "forever"I. I finally gave up on it realizing this was more than I could handle and that I needed a professional. It cost a lot - several hundred dollars but I felt I had no choice. I wish I could offer some help but I think your friend may need some help there. Have a great day. M.

It's been ages since I've done this but the best way to remove wallpaper was with a steam machine.

Here's some sites I found that have info on removing it. Hope this helps.
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=howTo&p=HomeDec...
http://www.ehow.com/how_###-###-####_remove-wallpaper-you...

When we moved into our home, it had wallpaper everywhere. It was awful wallpaper too. I couldn't take it down fast enough. We tried everything and when I say everything I mean everything. We finally found the one thing that worked and it was a wallpaper steamer. You fill it up with water and plug it in. Once the steam starts spilling out of the handle you apply the handle to the wall and begin steaming one whole section. Then, you just pull the wall paper off seamlessly. I swear to you this was the best!!! It was inexpensive and saved us time and frustration! I was able to remove the wallpaper from my entire home with this steamer and it didn't just take the top layer off. It steams through the paper down to the wall, and the steam releases the glue that is holding it in place, so when you pull the paper off, it's all coming off, glue included! I believe we got our wall paper steamer at either Home Depot or Lowes!