Real estate professionals will be the first to tell you that wallpaper can negatively influence a buyers perception of a home.  Even if it is replaced with a current design, you run the risk of not accomodating the potential buyers personal taste.  Noone is excited about facing the task of removing wallpaper.

Perhaps you removed wallpaper and took some of the drywall with it. Perhaps your new construction home came with builder’s grade flat paint that flakes easily. Perhaps the previous tenants had seriously bad taste. No matter what the situation, Painting With a Flair can help consult on the best plan of action when it comes to your interior home painting project. We offer additional services to prepare your walls for paint and we only use high quality paint products to ensure your satisfaction.

If you are making an investment to upgrade your home, be sure to do it right.  Your end result will only be as good as the surface you are working on.  Skipping steps is not your friend.  There is no good substitute for good prep work.  It is your best insurance to achieving quality results for any kind of paint project.

Stripping wallpaper can be either fairly easy or very time consuming and frustrating.  It all depends on if the wall prep was done correctly before the wallpaper was applied.  In some homes, you will find that the contractor or wallpaper hanger did not "size" the walls which makes removal more difficult.  "Sizing" is actually a primer coat that is applied prior to hanging the wallpaper.  Unfortunately, you have no way of knowing until you actually get into the process of removing the wallpaper.  Therefore, your tendency may be to avoid opening up that can of worms.  It seems the logical solution would be to leave it alone and pretend that it isn't there and paint over it, but then you are running the risk of the wallpaper peeling up even more, because you have to understand, the wallpaper is put on with a water-based paste and your paint products are water-based.  Then you also show all the seams.

Some big box stores have products and tools available that can make the process of wallpaper removal a little less tedious, but if you have time constraints, or the lack of skills to do drywall repair, it may be easier and more cost effective to hire a professional.  Many painting contractors have the skills and experience to remove wallpaper and complete any repairs that may be necessary before painting.

Wallpaper removal is a very time and labor intensive process.  When removing wallpaper using the above techniques, in some instances, can lead to tearing up the actual paper on the sheetrock and leads to having to repair the sheetrock, which is more time consuming and costly.

Now, don't forget, before you can paint these surfaces, there is another time consuming prep step that must be taken, you have to wash the glue residue from these newly exposed surfaces.

There are 3 types of wallpaper removal processes;

•Dry stripping

•Soaking and scraping

•Steaming

Dry Stripping

Use extreme caution when using this technique! Gauging your sheetrock leads to costly repairs.

Soaking and Scrapping

When using the scroll cutter to perforate the wallpaper, if too much pressure is applied, it can lead to costly repairs before you can paint the walls.

Steaming

When steaming, if the actual prep was not done prior to wallpaper being hung, you can damage the paper layer of the sheetrock, which again, can lead to costly repairs prior to painting.