The best way to strip woodchip wallpaper

removalwallpaper

I spent a large proportion of a (glorious) Sunday stripping a relatively small area of woodchip wallpaper from my spare room in an ongoing war to banish the stuff from my house.

I have a good steamer which is helping matters along, but due to five layers of paint and the fact that paper is very waterproof its not been easy.

Does anyone have any tips on ways in which this process can be sped along? We're having the whole room skimmed when I'm done, so I'm unconcerned about the state of the plaster behind when I'm done. It's already in quite a mess anyway, hence the skimming!

Best Answer

Unfortunately stripping woodchip can be a long, arduous process.

The way we've found best is to

  • work in small(ish) areas
  • score the area with a knife
  • run a scraper across the surface to knock out some of the chips

The last two expose some of the paper and give a route for the steam to enter.

Then steam this area and scrape again - but don't expect to get all the paper off first (or even second) time. Then steam the area again but don't scrape - leave the area to soak as you move onto the next area.

Then go back to the first area after 5-10 minutes and repeat.

Related Topic