Stubborn wallpaper

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spray bottle
spray bottle
Some of the dreadful wood chip wallpaper wouldn’t come off with mere scraping with a wallpaper scraping-off device. I needed something with more oomph. I bought a spray bottle.

I filled the spray bottle with hot water. I scored some lines on the stubborn wallpaper with the scraper. I sprayed the stubborn wallpaper, allowing time for the water to seep through the scored lines. Then I got scraping.

It worked. The paper was sticky and slimy from the dampened wallpaper paste, and the strips I pulled off were limited in size because of the scoring, but it all came off.

Stubborn patches

The walls in general must have been treated so that wallpaper would come off easily. Where it had been tricky, however, something had generally happened to the walls.

  • In some cases, cracks had been (badly) plastered over. Wallpaper paste sticks well to Polyfilla (or whatever it was).
  • Next to the skirting board and other wooden bits, they’d been repainted before wallpapering. However, it seems that no-one had heard of masking tape. Wallpaper paste sticks well to gloss paint.

In one place, there was a double layer of wood chip wallpaper. As if one layer isn’t bad enough.

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