When we bought our home in 2007 there were 3 rooms covered in wallpaper. Don't get me wrong, I do love wallpaper but I guess my taste is a little different from the 1970s wallpaper that we had inherited. The process of taking the wallpaper down started with the kitchen. I had purchased some kind of wallpaper remover at my local home improvement store only to find out it wasn't working like I thought it would. Spray it on, wait a little bit, scrape off. Easy right? NOT. I ended up being able to scrape off only little bits and pieces. Needless to say I put (ok I threw) my scraper on the floor and cried a little. This was supposed to be the "best stuff to use" I was told by my knowledgeable home improvement person.
Sitting outside with a cup of coffee a neuron fired off in my menopausal brain. FABRIC SOFTENER! What?!?! Where did that come from??? Trying to think if I read it somewhere, heard it from someone, I have no idea. I put myself back together with positive thoughts in mind that this HAD to work. If not I would have to live with a kitchen that looked like it had suffered a bad sunburn and was starting to peel. I took an old spray bottle, mixed it with 1/4 cup of fabric softener and filled the rest with warm water and tried a small corner. EUREKA! It worked!! The wallpaper peeled off magically!! I squealed with excitement!! Note to self: When you find yourself getting excited that wallpaper is magically coming off the wall you may need to get out a little more.
I sprayed and sprayed and with no effort the wallpaper was sliding off the walls and my kitchen smelled like it just came out of the dryer!!
A few tips: After you have taken all the wallpaper off completely make sure you wash the walls down with a damp rag. Try and get most if not all the fabric softener off the wall. I didn't do this with the first room I tried this on and the paint took forever to dry.
Here are a few pictures of my old groovy rooms.
Here are a few pictures of my old groovy rooms.
 |
| Between the pattern on the wall and floor this room made me dizzy. |
 |
| The 1/2 bath no longer looks like this but that's a whole other post! |
 |
| My husbands den. Looked more like a saloon. xoxo Jeri I'm linking this post up to: |
16 comments:
Great idea! I've heard this from several people now, so I'm going to try it on my 1990's floral and striped wallpaper in my upstairs bathroom. We shall see...
You won't be disappointed! Please, let me know how it works for you!
I can't wait to try this. My master bathroom has horrible wallpaper, but after the ordeal of the small bathroom I haven't been ready to try again. Thanks for the tip.
You're very welcome Grammy! Please come back and let me know how it worked for you!
Removing wallpaper is the absolute worst! Thanks for sharing an easy tip to make it more bearable. :)
Thank you Beth! I'm so excited you took the time to leave a comment! Yay!
I'm so excited to see this! We're moving next month and the house we're buying has LOTS of wallpaper. I've been dreading figuring out how to take it all down.
Hi Melany!
You must be so excited!! Please come back and let me know how it worked out for you and pics too!!
Best wishes!
Jeri
I have been thinking about wall papering but was dreading the peedl-off down the road - but now I don't have to worry to badly! Thanks for the great tip!
Thanks for sharing. Wallpaper can be such a stressful thing to remove. Please stop by www.laughloveandcraft.com and link up to my Share the Wealth Wednesday Link Party! I'm your newest follower!
Thank you Amanda & Laura!
Hi Jeri Iwas just about to google and your site was the first one! I just finished pulling the old 70's wall paper down, and what a mess in my kitchen, almost hate I did it! so I'm going right now to try your way, ooooohhh, I;m so happy, I'LL GET BACK TO YA, THANKS A MILLION!!
You are very welcome!! If you have pieces that are kinda stubborn just let the fabric softener soak in a little bit. I can't wait to hear the results!
xoxo
Jeri
Jeri, I just wanted to let you know it worked like a charm! I had decided to work on this until Monday, now I don't have to, I'm almost finished! Thank you so much, you saved me many hours, as I've had a stroke ,n my working side and just the little I had done had worn my arm out, so you see, you really did save the day!! much love to you.
Oh sweetie I'm so glad it worked for you!! I'm more happy that you get to relax a little!! You made my day! Thank you!!!
xoxo
Jeri
So glad it worked for you! Now you have your own walls to decorate! :)Thanks for linking up at my place!
Melody
ChattyChics.com
Post a Comment