wallpaper removal cost?
hi, im on verge of buying a two floor, 20×50 limestone. so its 2000 sq feet of living space — all wallpapered. any idea how much it would be to both remove the wallpaper and then paint? (or just the wallpaper part since i could paint myself if the wallpaper removal is a ton of…
hi, im on verge of buying a two floor, 20×50 limestone. so its 2000 sq feet of living space — all wallpapered. any idea how much it would be to both remove the wallpaper and then paint? (or just the wallpaper part since i could paint myself if the wallpaper removal is a ton of dough. also, is there a wildcard of whether there turns out to be a lot of plastering necessary underneath the wallpaper?any help would be much appreciated. thanks a lot.
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I’d consider painting over the wallpaper. You’ll save yourself quite a bit of time and money
I used a steamer, Walwik (sp?) and a Paper Tiger before realizing the easiest way was to score a section of wall with a putty knife, then spray with hot water from a pump-up garden sprayer, wait 15 minutes and use the same putty knife to remove the paper. I did my whole living room during TV commercials in a few evenings. The trick is to do it in sections: you score and spray one section, wait a few minutes, come back, spray again and at the same time start the next section, then scrape the first section and, at the same time, respray the second section and score the third one, and so on.
It may also be worthwhile to look into renting a small wallpaper steamer. I used one to remove several layers of ancient wallpaper throughout my 2,500 sqft house, and it worked great, and was relatively easy to clean up. The whole process of steaming-removing-cleaning took only a few days, and would probably have been even faster if we didn’t need to remove wallpaper from the ceiling in several rooms (one of the previous owners must have been completely batty).
In the UK, it’s standard to put up “lining paper” over plaster walls — basically low-grade off white wallpaper — and then to paint. Is the wallpaper is your new house textured? If not, you might want to consider just painting it. It’s certainly the cheapest option. And, aesthetically, all you’ll see will be the seams of the wallpaper. You’ll also avoid the possibility of finding damaged walls underneath that might necessitate a costly skim coat job.
While it’s not a perfect solution for all situations, one thing that may help a crumbling plaster scenario is a product called Miracle Wall. It’s essentially a butch liner paper that you put up after removing any wallpaper. Commercial restorers have been using it for years on historic properties that need a large amount of wall surface covered on a responsible budget. It’s cheaper than skim coating and if you’re at all handy, you can probably do it yourself.
Easiest place to find out more is on the This Old House website.
Yes, the condition of the plaster is very much a wild card! The plaster walls of my 1899 house had never been painted.The raw plaster walls under the wallpaper required many coats of primer, at best and mesh and skim coating, at worst. You will not know what’s needed until you remove the wallpaper and that step is the EASY part.
Often in old houses you’ll find that wallpaper was put up to hide crumbling plaster. It might not be the case in your house since it’s all wallpapered — sounds like someone really liked wallpaper. I removed wallpaper in our bathroom and it really was not so bad, but I guess it depends how well the wallpaper is stuck on there.
If the wallpaper will absorb wallpaper stripper you’re in luck. Just let the stripper disolve the paste and get a knife behind the paper and peal the paper off. Be sure to get the paste off your wall too. If it’s tough going there are tools to score the paper to get the stripper through. If you can’t get the paper off this way you’re in for a big plaster job and it will be expensive. I’m not sure what it would cost to have someone do this. It’s hard to tell what kind of time it will take. Good Luck.