Old fake wood paneling and wallpaper removal...

Kizzume

This week I've been very very busy--lots of studio stuff happening (it's taking SO long to get this album done), and here where I live we're renovating the house. The latest thing was the paneling--there was fake wood paneling on the wall of the kitchen and dining room. We knew that underneath would probably be some ugly wallpaper--sure enough, there was potentially the ugliest wallpaper we've ever encountered, and thought it wouldn't be too hard to just strip that crap off, put new texture on the wall, and repaint. Of course it wasn't that easy. There are 5 layers of wallpaper, the two closest to the wallboard/sheetrock were glued so heavily in 1948-1953 that to get them off, you have to chance having scrape marks showing the actual sheetrock. You know how you can make some paper act as though it were multi-ply (multi-ply like toiletpaper) even thought it wasn't designed to be? Well, that's the only way to get down to almost the sheetrock without actually going INTO the sheetrock itself. So, we've decided to strip it down to the last 1 or two, depending on what looks the smoothest, and then applying a special textuing paint that will fill the strange gaps, then add the same texture to the walls that exists in other parts of the house, then repaint. The only other things we could do would be to spend the money to have new sheetrock put in (yipes!) or we could spend the money on REAL wood paneling (yipes!), but we've decided to take the task of scraping it all off. When I find the camera, I'll take a photo of the work in progress.

Kizzume · Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 12:25 pm Post subject:

Kizzume · Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 12:40 pm Post subject:

I think the most recent layer is the ugliest wallpaper I've ever seen!

jq · Joined: 02 Dec 2007 Posts: 1124

I personally think the old wall paper looks cool-- vintaaaaaaage. I would keep it, personally. But since you are ripping it off, you should be very careful-- if the walls were painted at some point before the wall paper, there is a definite risk that it is lead paint based on the timeline!

Kizzume · Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 8:58 pm Post subject:

The one on the bottom, the last layer before the wallboard wasn't THAT bad, the one there's a closeup of, but the flowers candle one was just really hard to look at.... Smile

It definitely IS vintage, that's for sure Smile

jq · Joined: 02 Dec 2007 Posts: 1124

I've actually done some drywall myself. I've had to patch some ceilings in the past. Let me just say, drywalling really really sucks. Hopefully you won't have to cut too far into the drywall, because it isn't very thick or strong and it is a BIG time pain in the ass to deal with.

tristanrobin · Joined: 29 Dec 2007 Posts: 142 Location: New Haven, CT USA

not to be condescending, but, you ARE using a steamer, right?

Kizzume · Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 10:56 am Post subject:

No. We've been trying to use that wallpaper remover stuff and basically some chisels. Steamer?

tristanrobin · Joined: 29 Dec 2007 Posts: 142 Location: New Haven, CT USA

OMG

no wonder you can't get it off the wall LOL LOL LOL

just go to your local rental store and get a wallpaper steamer

it's just a handheld tool with very very small sharp shards on the bottom (like a very fine carrot grater or similar thing). You put water in the top and plug it in. When it starts putting out a jet of steam, you run it over the wallpaper (as I recall, you do it in circles). The tiny 'graters' scrape through parts of the wallpaper and the steam jets in behind it. It gets UNDER the wallpaper and it just peels off.

You can do an average size room in 2/3 hours usually.

That wallpaper remover crap is just for changing the wallpaper in a relatively new house - not for build up in old homes.

Just stop what you're doing, LOL, and get a STEAMER!!!!!

Kizzume · Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 2:49 pm Post subject:

Thank you VERY VERY much. I'm really glad to hear that there's something out there to help with this besides that gloopy stuff we're using now. Yeay! Smile