Four Steps to Stripping Wallpaper with a Steamer

Removing wallpaper from your walls is one of the most tedious tasks you can undertake when considering redecorating the walls inside your house. Problem is you can’t stand that pea green ’60s wallpaper anymore. Well it turns out that renting a wallpaper steamer can make your job exponentially easier. Here’s what you need to do to get your wallpaper off with the steamer:

1) Scoring still applies
This will likely still be the biggest annoyance of the project but it’s still necessary. Scoring the walls with an orbital scorer adds perforations to the wall that will give the steam a place to go. If you don’t do this, the steam likely won’t reach the glue.

2) Set it all up…
 It’s time to get everything set up. Follow the directions that the steamer gives you. Usually it will just call for water that it will heat up on its own. Wait until the water gets hot and the plate is emitting steam.

3) Then take it all down
First of all, be aware of where you have the hot plate at all times and wear long sleeves. The plate can easily scald you if it is not handled properly. To begin, put the steamer on the place that you want to start, preferably on the corner of a seam. It’s recommended that you keep the plate in one spot for 20-30 seconds.

Once you have an area that you can handle starting to peel, remove the wet piece using a putty knife. Do not tear into the parts that you haven’t steamed out. If you try ripping off dry pieces, you will have a lot more cleaning up to do with small pieces getting stuck. Always have garbage bags available to put the pieces in, you wouldn’t want the wet glue to reset on your floor, causing quite a mess.

4) Finishing up
Before you plan on starting over again with your wall, whether it be paint or more wallpaper, be sure that you have everything cleared off the wall including small scraps. If you see any holes, fill them up with putty and let them dry before doing anything else.