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circusgirl
New member
Hi folks, I am having a wee problem getting some wallpaper off the walls of my apartment.
Here's the problem - my dining room was decorated by the previous occupants as follows. They put anagalypta paper (the textured stuff you are supposed to paint over) on the walls and painted over that. Then they put a border of regular paper over that at the very top of the walls.
Here's my problem - I'm quite happy with the painted-over anagalypta paper. I've painted over the blue paint with 3 coats of white emulsion. I thought the border at the top would look nice but it doesn't, it looks stupid. So now I have to remove it, without removing the paintwork on the rest of the walls.
I don't want to paint over the border, as it's not strong paper and I'vea feeling the weight of the paint would take the paper away from the wall somewhat, plus as the texture is different to the rest of the walls it would be really obvious I had done this.
I tried the water-with-dish-detergent method, this was great for removing the pattered layer of the border, but not the base layer plus the paste underneath. I then tried water+vinegar, no dice. Basically the paper is softened but the paste is not really being melted. I need to remoev all traces of paste and paper to paint.
As the ceiling is about 15ft high I REALLY don't want to rent a steamer for this as I don't fancy getting on a stepladder with a device that heats up to 450 centigrade - the border is on the last top 6 inches of wall below the ceiling ... Plus if I use something evil like paint stripper, it will remove my paintwork underneath in streaks where it drips down. In addition, the anagalypta paper is dircetly pasted on to the plasterboard wall and I really don't want any of that coming off as damage to this can be tricky to fix...
I've considered taping lots of cotton wool all round to stop drips and streaking like they do at the hair salon when they put bleach in your hair, and using stripper anyway, but as this stuff also gives off fumes I'm not keen on it (I bought it originally to strip some furniture which I did outdoors).
Ideas folks?
Here's the problem - my dining room was decorated by the previous occupants as follows. They put anagalypta paper (the textured stuff you are supposed to paint over) on the walls and painted over that. Then they put a border of regular paper over that at the very top of the walls.
Here's my problem - I'm quite happy with the painted-over anagalypta paper. I've painted over the blue paint with 3 coats of white emulsion. I thought the border at the top would look nice but it doesn't, it looks stupid. So now I have to remove it, without removing the paintwork on the rest of the walls.
I don't want to paint over the border, as it's not strong paper and I'vea feeling the weight of the paint would take the paper away from the wall somewhat, plus as the texture is different to the rest of the walls it would be really obvious I had done this.
I tried the water-with-dish-detergent method, this was great for removing the pattered layer of the border, but not the base layer plus the paste underneath. I then tried water+vinegar, no dice. Basically the paper is softened but the paste is not really being melted. I need to remoev all traces of paste and paper to paint.
As the ceiling is about 15ft high I REALLY don't want to rent a steamer for this as I don't fancy getting on a stepladder with a device that heats up to 450 centigrade - the border is on the last top 6 inches of wall below the ceiling ... Plus if I use something evil like paint stripper, it will remove my paintwork underneath in streaks where it drips down. In addition, the anagalypta paper is dircetly pasted on to the plasterboard wall and I really don't want any of that coming off as damage to this can be tricky to fix...
I've considered taping lots of cotton wool all round to stop drips and streaking like they do at the hair salon when they put bleach in your hair, and using stripper anyway, but as this stuff also gives off fumes I'm not keen on it (I bought it originally to strip some furniture which I did outdoors).
Ideas folks?
