A guide of things NOT to do when attempting to remove wallpaper.
1. Do not attempt to do any sort of manual labor after only consuming a mere 160 calories.
- This morning, I got up late and proceeded to go about my day shopping and running errands on an empty stomach. Baaad idea. No good can come of this. As a self-diagnosed "hypoglycemic," I should know better than this.
- When I finally did eat around 2:30, I filled up with...a can of soup. Then started to prep the bathroom for paper removal, which included removing a shelf system from behind the toilet (God only knows how they got it in there in the first place) - and this made me want to take a nap.
- Considering I didn't really do anything and was tired, I figured I was due for more food. A snack! A snack will do wonders! Filled to the brim with apples & peanut butter, I set off. It didn't work, 15 minutes into wall paper removal I was whiny and cranky and everything sucked.
- Watching HGTV and TLC does not count as experience in removing wallpaper. I just went at it armed with a rented steamer, a very dangerous looking scoring tool, and a general idea of what to do.
The scoring tool is downright medieval.
And while I waited for the steamer to heat up, I "scored" the entire bathroom instead of testing a section that was somewhat out of sight.
- Somewhere along the way, I wasn't sure where the wallpaper ended and the sheet rock began.
- Perhaps there are instances where this process is easy, but I had to go and try to remove textured AND painted wallpaper...that the aforementioned very dangerous scoring tool had trouble permeating.
So as of right now, there's a bald spot in my bathroom. I have three options I'm willing to entertain - leave it as it and paint over it, cut a pice of wallpaper and put it up in the bald spot, or....put the damn shelf back and hope no one notices.
The bald spot.
Posts
Ah, that totally happened to us too when we started the wallpaper removal process. This is what I've found helps.
ReplyDeleteEnlist another person. You need someone to pull the wallpaper fairly quickly after you apply the steam, once it loses the warmth it almost instantly gets stickier and then you end up pulling off the top layer of your drywall, which means patching. Ugh!
Don't try and be a perfectionist (may not work for everyone). We ended up pulling off lots of bits of the top part of our drywall along the way before we got into the groove. Just know that after you patch your wall might look a bit like a topographic map, but it's ok because once you paint not many people will notice.
Also, I was having a blast using the medieval torture device (aka scorer) until i realized you didn't need to push hard at all, and that my energy and excitement was probably causing more damage than not. Just lightly run the scorer along the walls.
I'd offer to help you, but there's not much time. If the project can wait until January, I can come down one weekend and at the very least you can have company while you have a mental breakdown!!