Considering that this previous installer broke just about all the rules of hanging wallpaper , his job looks good, seams are tight , and it’s held up for 20 years . This is one of the typical materials we were hanging back then, a pre-pasted , paper-backed , solid-vinyl wallcovering . Not my favorite material at all (often curling at seams , especially in bathrooms and/or when installed without proper wall prep ). Thankfully, they’re not very prevalent today, outside of the lower-end market. Anyway, these are usually fairly easy to strip off the wall . All you need is water , a putty knife , and patience .But here’s a wrench in the works – the previous installer hung this vinyl paper over existing wallpaper . A big no-no! You can see the original stuff peeking out around the light switch. That original wallpaper was installed by the builder in the ‘90’s , and almost always you can bet it’s been hung directly on un-primed / un-sealed Sheetrock . This can be very difficult to get off, without tearing up the surface of the drywall. If that original paper is paper instead of vinyl ( plastic ), sometimes it’s OK to leave it on the wall , prep it correctly, and hang the new wallpaper over it. So that was my original plan. Strip off the vinyl and its paper backing, and then prep the bottom layer and hang new paper over it. But, as you can see if you look closely at the edges of the bottom wallpaper, that fuzzy manilla paper backing is telling us that it, too, is a solid vinyl material. No matter how you might prep it, we don’t want this thick , slick , plastic stuff under our new wallpaper.Back to the topic of stripping wallpaper . Done properly , it’s not a horror show. All you need is water and patience . The theory is to reactivate the old paste with water , and it will let go and the paper will come off the wall. But water won’t penetrate the vinyl / plastic layer (and it won’t penetrate the thin acrylic coating on other types of wallpaper, either ). So, the first thing you need to do is remove that top layer. These solid vinyl materials are pretty cooperative. Simply get under the vinyl with a 3” stiff putty knife and then use your hands to pull it away from its paper backing . It usually separates and comes off in fairly large pieces. The same process works for thinner paper wallpapers , too, but it helps a lot if you sponge the surface first with water , as this seems to strengthen the fibers somehow, and you’ll get that top layer off in larger chunks (instead of 1” bits). Sometimes works better pulling from bottom to top, or from right to left…. experiment and see what works best.Next use a sponge and a bucket of warm water …… to wet that paper backing . You’ll want to go over each area several times , to be sure it’s thoroughly saturated . The idea is to get it wet enough that it will reactivate the wallpaper paste underneath . Be sure to cover and protect your floor and vanity countertop .Once that paste has softened , you should be able to use your 3” stiff putty knife to gently scrape the paper backing off the underlying surface . If you’re really lucky , it will release easily and cleanly and all you’ll have to do is pull with your hands.Here you can see the original layer of wallpaper underneath. Since this turned out to be another paper-backed solid vinyl material, it also had to be removed , following the same process outlined above. Once that top decorative vinyl layer was removed , the paper backing was left stuck to the wall. I wetted it , let it soak until the paste was soft, and then gently scraped it off the wall. Doing so revealed that – what did I tell you?! – yes, the builder’s wallpaper hanger didn’t prime or seal the wall before hanging the paper. This is usually disasterous, because the wallpaper will often actually bond with the drywall surface and be nearly impossible to get off. So I was really surprised that I was able to scrape this off with absolute no damage to the drywall . No peeling surface , no gouges , not even much paste residue (I did sponge off what I could). Once all that water evaporated and the Sheetrock dried , I did some minor prep touch-ups , sanded lightly , and then applied my wallpaper primer . I like Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime .
You are looking a the plastic escutcheon / decorative cover to hide plumbing pipes under this pedestal sink. Someone painted it the same color as the wall, and with the same wall paint. Only problem is, most paints won’t stick to plastic. Plastic is too slick. That’s why now the paint is peeling off with just the slightest tug or tension. It’s peeling away like a snake shedding his skin. There are some solutions for this. For starters, the plastic could have been sanded, to give the paint some “tooth” and something to grab ahold of. There are also primers that will adhere to plastic and prepare it to take the paint. Even simpler, there are paints formulated to stick to plastic. Krylon makes some, and I’ve used it on my outdoor lawn chairs; it’s held up nicely for about 20 years.
Prior to prepping for wallpaper, I’ve removed a hanging shelf. It had stuck to the paint, and pulling the shelf off the wall also took some of the paint along with it.
This is a bad sign. If paint will release from the wall so easily, it’s an indicator of an unstable surface underneath, that the paint is not able to bond to.
That also bodes poorly for any coatings applied on top of it, such as my smoothing compound, primer, and wallpaper.
The most worrisome of these is wallpaper. Because unlike other substances, wallpaper expands when it gets wet with paste, and then as the paste dries, the paper shrinks a tad and puts stress / torque on the wall. If the underlying surface is unstable, these layers can actually pull apart, resulting in a ” popped ” seam.
This is not a ” loose ” seam and cannot be simply glued back together. It’s layers deep inside the wall coming apart / delaminating from each other, and virtually impossible to really repair.
So what causes this? Do a Search here to read my other posts on this topic. But causes can include incompatible surfaces, such as old oil-based paint covered with newer latex paint, gloss paint covered with new paint without proper prep / de-glossing, chalky or calcimine paint, or coatings applied to a dusty wall.
In all these cases, the top coatings won’t be able to adhere tightly, and can result in what you see here – the top layer(s) of paint pulling off the wall with just a little stress.
Even worse, in my world, is the potential of the surface beneath wallpaper seams coming away from the wall.
Original vinyl wallpaper in this bathroom was peeling badly, due to humidity and poor ventilation. The design was dated, too. And, gee – borders are pretty much a thing of the past. Time for an update. Old paper has been stripped off, wall has been primed. Ready for the new stuff!What a pretty and cheery pattern! The window looks out to a lush and green backyard, and this foliage-themed wallpaper helps pull the feeling inside. I was losing natural daylight, so the pretty blue and lime tones are not showing up well. The colors are a little more true here. This almost looks like a water color painting!A Street Prints is the manufacturer. This is non-woven material, also called paste-the-wall. It went up very nicely. And, because there is no vinyl and because the substrate has a higher polyester content and less paper, this should hold up much better in the humid bathroom. Nonetheless, I did lecture the homeowner to run the exhaust fan and to keep the bathroom door open for air circulation.
The home is in the League City subdivision south of Houston.
I was stripping wallpaper by peeling off the top vinyl layer and then soaking the paper backing to reactivate the paste so the paper could be removed from the wall – and ran into this.
It looks like the previous installer smoothed the wall (which is good), but used a latex spackling compound instead of the more typical joint compound. The latex became wet from the water I was using to soak off the wallpaper, and began to pull away from the wall.
This is all bad, because it leaves a bumpy mess on the wall that will show through the new paper. But worse is that it is an unstable surface for the new paper to try to hold on to. When wallpaper paste dries, the paper shrinks and puts tension on the surface below, particularly the seams. If the surface is not solid, the layers can actually come apart (delaminate) resulting in curled or gapping seams.
This is not “loose paper,” and cannot simply be glued back down. The different layers inside the wall are actually coming apart, and will require a lot of work to make the wall sound again.
Once the paper was off and the wall was good and dry, the layers seemed to adhere to each other better, and the wall felt more solid. The way I treated it was to roll on a coat of Gardz, which is a penetrating sealer that binds things together. It did a good job. Then I skim-floated over that with joint compound, which, when sanded, would leave a nice, smooth surface.
One more coat of Gardz on top of that, and the wall was sound and ready for wallpaper.
The new homeowners bought an adorable 1920’s home in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston, and inherited a dining room with a beautiful wallpaper pattern – that unfortunately had not been hung properly. The wallpaper was curling at the seams, peeling away, and literally falling off the wall. It is taking chunks of a white substance along with it.
It’s hard to determine exactly what is causing the failure, but the first issue is that the underlying wallpaper was not removed. Since wallpaper has an acrylic coating, it does not provide a secure foundation for the new paper to adhere to. In some cases, it’s not possible to remove the old paper, and then the seams should be floated over, and the old paper should be primed so it will have a surface that the new paper can grab ahold of.
Here, it looks like the walls were either not primed at all, or were primed with a flat wall paint. Some of that paint is letting go of the old wallpaper and pulling away from the wall, which allows the new paper to fall off.
Ideally, that striped ’90’s paper should be stripped off, along with any other layers of paper underneath. But it looks like some of the underlying paper was floated over, and that makes it particularly difficult to remove.
I suspect there are other issues going on, so it will take some time and exploration to decide what will be the proper approach for removing the beige paper and then prepping the walls, before the new homeowners’ new paper can go up.
See that brown craggily line, running vertically up the door molding? That is residue from wallpaper paste, left by the previous installer – in 1994 !!
It’s common for paste to get onto ceilings and woodwork, but you’re supposed to wipe it off. Sometimes it’s hard to see, though. Or sometimes you think you’ve removed all the residue, but some hides from you and remains behind. And over time, the residue can darken and flake. That was the case in this home.
What gets me is, this brown cracked flaky stuff had stayed here, easy to see, for twenty years. That’s a shame, because all it took to remove it, after, yes, 20 years, was to wipe the woodwork with a damp rag.
We are lucky that the homeowners had not painted the woodwork in all this time, because putting paint over this paste residue would must surely cause the new paint to crackle and flake.
Note to self: Always wash, prime, and wipe off dust, from moldings or ceilings or other surfaces, before painting.
(I didn’t get pictures, but there was also crackly paint at the ceiling, caused by paste residue eating into the ceiling paint, which will cause bubbling, lifting, and cracking)
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