It’s the bain of our DIY existence.

Finding the answer is like searching for the Holy Grail.

You search Google.
You talk to the experts at your local home improvement center.
You troll blogs in search of the answer.

Fabric softener isn’t the solution.

The PaperTiger is most definitely NOT the solution.

Steaming is so not a solution.

I am going to tell you THE SECRET, my secret, to stripping wallpaper.

Like most good recipes, this one has been passed along from a friend. Chris is a professional painter and wallpaper stripper. He’s gotten pretty good at removing wallpaper since it’s been on the down side of home decor popularity for the past several years.

Chris is my “Go To Guy” when clients need a referral for dirty work like stripping wallpaper from a two-story foyer. I called him when I couldn’t even get a finger nail under the seam of paper on the walls of our dining room at our Cottage In the Woods. {We had removed the wallpaper in the kitchen ourselves without a problem.}

I had an appointment so I left him to do the work. When I returned less than three hours later, he had removed ALL the paper! I was amazed and begged for his “secret recipe”.

Since then, I have passed it along to many, many clients. Most recently just a couple weeks back I gave the secret with a client who had torn up a wall in her kitchen trying to remove wallpaper. It was all pockmarked and in serious need of repair. She was at the end of her rope and desperate.  I told her the secret and a week later she called thrilled with how easy the rest of the paper had come down using the secret!

Here’s Chris’ recipe for easily removing wallpaper:

DO NOT score your wallpaper. Don’t use a PaperTiger or any other kind of scoring instrument. Scoring the wallpaper only results in it coming off in little tiny pieces.

1. Buy some DIF and a portable tank sprayer. Be sure to protect wood floors and have a few rags/sponges to wipe up drips.

2. Mix the DIF with VERY HOT water (look to DIF for proper ratio of H2O/DIF).

3. Now completely cover a 4-6 foot section of the wall with a fine spray of very hot DIF water and let it sit for five minutes.

4. Spray that same wall again and let it set another five minutes. W-A-I-T. Patience is key.

5. Move to the next 4-6 foot section and spray. You’re not drenching the walls but covering them in a fine spray that’s enough to penetrate the wallpaper.

6. Go back to the first swath and spray it a third time.  Spray the second section again and wait.

7. Now take a joint knife, scraper, trowel, spatula, etc. and peel up an edge of the first secion. If it comes up easily, you’re ready to strip.  Make sure you keep the walls moist – you only want to work a section or two per person at a time so you can maintain the wet surface.

That’s it. The secret to being a great stripper! Have fun.

{Oh yeh, one more thing – make sure to put the wallpaper you’ve removed immediately into a trash bag to avoid the “big mess” of clean up.}

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Tagged as: easy wallpaper removal, how to remove wallpaper, how to strip wallpaper, The secret, wallpaper removal, wallpaper removal made easy, wallpaper stripping