By Debra Smith
Herald Writer
There’s a lot to love about my Everett home — the neighbors, the schools, the park down the street — but what we don’t adore is the wallpaper.
Chickens and fruit march around the kitchen. Baskets of cutesy little flowers adorn the bathroom.
And the worst offender: a lavender-and-lace era floral pattern in the kids’ bedroom, accented by a maroon and gold paisley border.
That paper needed to go.
My only experience removing wallpaper was an hourslong sticky, wet, messy process. This time, I wanted to try the best products and avoid some of my earlier missteps. We ordered two solutions, DIF Gel Wallpaper Stripper by Zinsser, and Safe and Simple, to test in my daughters’ bedroom. We also used an electric steamer for comparison.
We tried several wallpaper removal tools, including Zinsser’s PaperScraper and PaperTiger, a scoring tool, and Roman’s Piranha, another paper scraper.
The bedroom turned out to be a good test case because it was a difficult job: We found several layers, plus wallpaper applied on wood.
We used the two products on separate, similar walls and followed the manufacturer’s instructions to the letter.
The DIF gel product is Smurf blue and comes premixed in a spray bottle. My hand felt limp and damp after furiously squeezing it at the wall.
The Safe and Simple product comes in concentrated form and needs to be mixed. We applied it using a clean garden-type sprayer.
Both were relatively effective at loosening the wallpaper, but both required multiple applications. The Zinsser company recommends washing the wall with a sponge and clean water. Neither worked discernibly better than the other.
The steamer, the Wagner 705 Electric Wallpaper Steamer (retail $59.99), worked equally well. My co-worker loaned it to me with this comment: “It works like butta” and she was right. Fill the reservoir with water, wait for it to heat, press to the wallpaper for a few seconds and scrape away the pulpy paper.
Zinsser suggests using its PaperTiger, a palm-held tool with small cutting wheels that perforate the wallpaper, to allow the stripper to reach the paper’s adhesive. We didn’t find the tool particularly helpful, and it did leave small holes in the wall surface.
My husband and I both tried using the Piranha and the PaperScraper, which struck me as glorified putty knives. Our sharp putty knife seemed to work better than these products.
We also learned the hard way you need to protect the ceiling from overspray. We found a large plastic container top acted as a good shield.
Safe and Simple 603 costs $7.50 for 16 ounces, which make 8 gallons. A 32-ounce bottle of DIF Gel Spray costs $5.50 and makes 2 gallons. A gallon covers about 100 square feet.
My advice: Skip the special wallpaper tools and stick with a putty knife. Use a garden-type sprayer rather than a hand-sprayer. Both the steamer and the two commercial products worked well enough on our walls. The Safe and Simple gets the edge because the walls don’t have to be cleaned with water afterward and the product is biodegradable.
No matter what the manufacturers’ promise on the labels, wallpaper removal is an hourslong sticky, wet mess.
Debra Smith, 425-339-3197, dsmith@heraldnet.com
Tips from a pro
Dick Staats of Marysville, owner of Staats Decorating Service, offers these tips and tricks to make this messy job tolerable.
Prepare as you would for painting: Move the furniture, cover flooring and doors with plastic, remove electrical faceplates and turn off the power.
Scrape away as much paper while it’s dry as you can with a putty knife,
Staats doesn’t care for scoring tools because they can leave pin pricks in the walls. He uses a 36-grit sandpaper to penetrate the wallpaper.
Spray the solution on the wall according to the manufacturer’s directions using a garden-type sprayer rather than a spray bottle. Staats prefers Safe and Simple. It’s effective, nontoxic and biodegradable, he says.
Wait the required 15 minutes for the product to do its work. “This is a patience product,” Staats said.
Use a wide putty knife to scrape away the pulpy material left on the wall.
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