How to Remove Wallpaper from Plaster Walls

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We bought our dream home and it’s COVERED in wallpaper. Bedrooms, kitchen, bathrooms, hallways. You name it. It’s wallpapered. I had removed wallpaper in the past and remembered it being horrible, but not this horrible. The first room I tackled was our bedroom.

From my previous experience, I knew a wallpaper steamer was the quickest, easiest way to remove the wallpaper. Every wallpaper I’ve come across in our house is completely different, but for this particular project, the wallpaper definitely had a “top layer.” I peeled that off by hand before steaming and scraping the backing off the wall.

What I didn’t know was that the glue would be 100x harder to remove than the wallpaper itself. Desperate for a solution, I searched the Internet high and low and asked my fellow DIY Instagram friends. I tried vinegar, baking soda, dish soap, fabric softener. You name it. I tried it.

After trying various recommended solutions and concoctions with terrible luck, I revisited using the steamer to remove the glue. Previously, I had been steaming and scraping with a scraper, but because the wall wasn’t perfectly smooth, the scraper wasn’t picking up the glue.

This time, I got a bucket of hot water and Dawn dish soap with a microfiber rag and after I would steam a section, I would wipe it off with the wet rag. Rinse (the rag) and repeat (over and over and over again). It works like a charm, and I plan to use this method as I tackle more of the house!

The Best Tools for the Job:

There was a lot of prep work after getting the wallpaper and glue off. I had to spackle, caulk, sand and then prime before I could actually paint. That was a much easier job, but it required some patience for things to dry appropriately.