One morning a few weeks ago, nothing was going right. There was some issue with everyone. and I felt I had a days worth of stress before 7 AM. After everyone left, I went to use my powder room and next thing I new, I was tearing the wallpaper off of the wall. Completely unplanned. But I was in control!
Now, I have hated this wallpaper since we moved in 16 years ago, but just never got around to it. It was hunter green with a country look to it. Probably looked good in 1990, but just not my style.
That evening, when Ryan got home he just came out of the bathroom and said,”awww, Mom, are you OK?”. When Chuck got home he calmly walked out and said,”I guess we’re remodeling the bathroom”.
Anyway, this post is just about removing wallpaper. In our first home, I removed wallpaper in several rooms with various chemicals. It was an older home and the wallpaper was the old type with paste. It was a mess.
This room is a very small room without a window for ventilation. I have asthma and besides, breathing those fumes isn’t good for anyone, so I researched alternatives.
I saw a post about using fabric softener, but I had a flashback to the day that Connor spilled the downy all over the laundry room floor. I scrubbed and scrubbed, but that floor was slippery for about a half of a year! opted not to try that. (Still looking for the photo of Connor sitting in the puddle of fabric softener)
I ended up trying 50-50 vinegar and water, slightly heated. First I tried also using my heat gun, thinking that it removes sticky residue from stickers. That didn’t work great.
Next I got my steamer (it’s a small fabric steamer, not a large one or a cleaning steamer. I closed the door to the room and sprayed the mixture.Then I put the steamer under the area I was working on. Worked well!
After I was finished with removing the wallpaper, it was time
for the sticky glue to come off. I used the same vinegar and water mixture, with a few drops of dawn and sprayed generously. After about five minutes, I scraped it off.
I came up with a simple solution to take care of the glue on the scraper. I folded down the cover of a magazine catalog. And scraped it off on the edge. When it started getting messier, I folded down a few pages. I had a thicker paper catalog that worked great for this. If you have never done this process, it is tedious work to remove all the glue.
This is why I like paint!!!