I've hit the wall. It is a bit of a shame, especially because we are only four days into the work!!
I hate our thick bumpy wallpaper. The bumpiness is not a product of poor wallpapering technique. Indeed, the only positive thing I can state about the wallpaper is that it is very well applied. At some stage it has been painted; at least two coats. Again, this has been done very well.
It is a bitch to remove.
When I first researched removing wallpaper I read that a lot of people just needed a scraper and it came right off. I learnt that sometimes, if it is really thick you might need a wallpaper steamer. A friend came over and we had an experimental rip of the wallpaper in the bathroom. Only a tiny bit came off. This is the bathroom mind you, a small, poorly ventilated space that gets a lot of steaming. The floor and walls also get pretty wet from enthusiastic small child water play. The steam and water have not damaged the wallpaper. Lame.
Today my friend came over to have a go removing the wallpaper. I had no idea how it would go, but thought that perhaps we would get the bathroom and landing done. In my wildest dreams of easy wallpaper removal I thought that I might strip the wallpaper in the kitchen overnight.
No. It is very hard. We scored the wallpaper with a little device that promptly broke. I took it back to Resenes for replacement. In the meantime my friend had continued with the steamer. On returning to the house I checked on progress. The bathroom was a sauna! My friend was down to his boxer shorts! I opened the window and set up a fan. Later I had a go at using the steamer. It was slow and hard and only moderately faster than using nothing.
By the end of the day my friend had spent seven solid hours working hard out on the bathroom. It was two thirds complete. By the end of day two and four more hours the bathroom was stripped bare. With the cost of labour and hiring the machine it was a pricey way to do things. It also created a giant wet sticky mess.
The wallpaper was directly onto hardboard and I can see we will need to re-plaster before painting.
I googled local wallpaper removal companies; this is not something we are going to be doing ourselves.
I'd had high hopes that we would be able to get the wallpaper off all the locations where I want to install the shelving. We did none :(
On the plus side I got a quote from the joiner for built in shelving. I'm hoping my husband will agree :)
However, there will be no shelves until I remove the wallpaper underneath.
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