Go get 'em, tiger.

So is it not good form to just paste the new over the old, or does that just present new problems...

Oh, and best of luck in your destructo endeavors.

Don't get upset. It's wallpaper's nature to just hang, even after it's overstayed it's welcome.

I've always had the best luck using a spray bottle filled with water and dishsoap or water and fabric softener. Just spray it on the wall and let it sit for a few seconds, then scrap.

I thought you were talking to the hat!

Man, that was a bit close to the bone.

Okay, pie wins this thread, too.

Thanks for the tip, fbk. I'll try it, no matter how much my boss may scoff. And Schyler, more wallpaper is never the solution to anything. Trust me. Especially in this case, when we're painting the place. But really, never.

See also

I hear ya loud and clear, elizard.

This sounds like a problem for marijuana.

To solve, I mean.

Or ease.

Or something.

*cough*

Don't sweat it.
Buy a 'paper tiger', it's round, fits the palm of your hand, it has teeth underneath, roll it around the complete wall. All over.
Apply hot water with a roller. Roll the hell out of that wall with the water. Soak it. More paper tigering. More water...

Sit back, give it an evil stare and it'll peel off, just like that.

Can we have a side shot of that hat,pieisexactlythree....was it the hat or the photographer... ;)

This post made me nervous. (Phew! the wallpaper)

Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either this wallpaper goes, or I do".

The hat:
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This is also relevant

hee!

I really want to see shots of the wallpaper before and after now elizard. I totally know what you're saying - this place has that kind of structure wallpaper in most places, you know where there's walppaper with chipped wood bits in it. Such a bitch. ANd one hallway had that white thick wood-cement-goo that run-down pizza-parlors have in greece, that was impossible to get off has to stand with a hammer and chip the dang stuff for days.

I was planning on putting up wallpaper today. Loud, old fashioned pattern - in fact gold on gold, oh yeah. I'm home alone with the toddler so I don't know if we'll manage though.

You might need a ladder for the toddler, or it won't be able to reach the top.

Headline: 'Thief seen running down Spadina after stealing a spring hat from Rotman's'. Too funny, pieisexactlythree, I asked for it, Gaaaaaaah. nicely done.


Uh-oh, wallpaper + toddler....say, I don't recall buying 3D wallpaper.
wait, where's the kid....

I actually considered bringing a sample home to scan for your edification (or pukification). It's not textured, thank god, just surprisingly busy and bright for such a small room, with an even busier border around the top. I'm really looking forward to the main bathroom on that floor, I tells ya: dark dark blue background with some kind of pattern on it, and a (poorly) hand-cut-from-some-other-wallpaper stripy border. This in a room about 20 square feet in total, including the shower stall, with all kinds of weird angles due to it being on the top floor just by the eaves. Someone went to a great deal of trouble to make that room look dark and poky. You would think the visual offensiveness would make removing it that much more satisfying, but it doesn't. Then again, I generally have a massive hate-on for wallpaper, especially floral wallpaper. Maybe it's hereditary: I distinctly remember my mother's glee as she tore a similarly busy (but in 70's purple and pink) floral wallpaper from my bedroom wall when I was tiny and wee.

Since I started painting for a living I've become ruthless about stuff like this. As I explained to a friend the other day, yes, it's great to be working, but one of the perks about working in the trades is being able to bitch about every other trade, and twice as hard about the jackass who did the job before you. (You should *see* what the paint job was like downstairs! I mean, really! Blind monkeys with brushes tied to their tails could've done better!) But I do genuinely, truly, deeply hate this wallpaper. At least it's a good workout.

My parents built a house in the late 70s, and it was a real showpiece of that era's design--lots of exposed rough cedar, high ceilings, poppy-colored cabinets (seriously, we called it "Hardee's orange"), and reflective foil wallpaper in the bathrooms.

After a few years, Mom grew tired of the foil wallpaper, and often complained about it, but was never inspired to go through the work of removing it. My aunt grew tired of the complaining, so one day walked into the bathroom and ripped a giant strip of the wallpaper off the wall. "Now you have to do something about it," she said.

Hahahahahahaha! I think I like your aunt.

Yeah, our house had that foil wallpaper, too--with flocking! My grandad (who'd lived in Montreal for several years) said it looked like a Quebec funeral home. Even better, my sister's room was done in bright yellow paper with black smiley faces all over it. She still remembers the nightmares it spawned. Mum redecorated as quickly as she could, but as she was a working single mum it took her a while (like, years).

Har! I love these wallpaper stories.

There's something about wallpaper that's seemingly more permanent in people's minds than plain old paint... You see folks change paint colors, but they never change the wallpaper. I guess it's because of the difficulty and mess of removing it. And, if the place wasn't at least prime-painted prior to wallpapering, then all bets are off!

And vinyl wallpaper on exterior-facing walls is just awful where we are. With the humidity being high and air conditioning on, the moisture tends to condense on the wallboard that the wallpaper is on = mold central...

Oh man, this is a nightmare to try and do and I'll NEVER do it again. She's very cute and "helps" by brushing the wallpaper down but it gets oh-so-crooked and the dang edges just don't want to stick. In fact I thought I'd post it to photo friday as a depiction of a thousand swearwords. This is how far we've gotten. It's taken four and a half hours.

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≡ Click to see image ≡

Wait, you're putting wallpaper UP?!?!?!? But now I have to declare you my arch enemy! And I really didn't want to do that. Damn. Looks good, though. Very nice job on the pattern matching, especially considering the helpfulness of your helper.

I really should've saved my rant for today instead: vinyl wallpaper, often on bare drywall/mud, lots of contact cement (because, duh, wallpaper don't stick too well in a small room with a shower in it), going behind the shower enclosure and under the caulking, and...AND...the spacer behind the bathroom sink (the most awkward place in a room full of awkward spaces) was gift-wrapped in the damned stuff, held on with staples and nails and whatever else struck their fancy. *shudders* Boss called it a day at 3:15, certain that it was already 5.

Oh, fbk, the reason we can't use soap is because if you don't get every last smidgen of soap off the wall you run the risk of the paint not adhering. I thought that might be the case, but had hoped not. *sigh*

It's a head to head battle! Who will win: the stripper or the layer? Or upper?

Btw. it looks GREAT, dabs, just like i expected.

i lived in a place with one big wall flocked with red fleurs, it looked like a bordello and i loved it. i was only 13 or so but i still wanna flock something, bad.

elizard , I fully understand the arch-enemy thing, having stripped all these walls first. Maaaaan, that's a pain and a half. But it's oh-so-worth it and later, you might even (gasp!) want wallpaper.

Hey, here's an old pattern we found underneath all the other crud:
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We photographed each wallpaper we found (there were layers since 1906 here) just cuz one day, we might find it amusing. I', getting there, it'll be a few more years though. ;)

Flocked wallpaper can look great - i've seen this pattern in real life and Cole and Son make me... Uhm.. NSFW, really. But I'm not brave enough for that. Pretty brave, just not flock brave.

This was pure 70s American Cheese, but i'm loving that roseberry.

It burns! IT BURRRRRRNNNNNSSSS!!!!!

Holy shit that one is mad!

dabitch's picture of wallpaper "found underneath all the other crud" reminds me of the trip we took up north last summer. We went through Mrs. Doohickie's grandma's house [MOFB] (with her uncle as tour guide). I think the house was last decorated in the 70s (note the harvest gold paint in the kitchen) but the attic was even older, and you can see a few different samples of wallpaper that is probably as old as 80 years.

Sadly, that blog post I linked to from last July is the last post in my blog. I am teh suck at blogging.

Happily, I just noticed a comment on another one of my blog entries, the only one by someone I don't know, who said, "Oh, and your writing is lovely, thanks for being part of my day." So maybe I'm not as teh suck as I think I am; maybe I'm just lazy ;-)

Any admirers of flocked wall paper are encouraged to check out the Melodee bar in El Cerrito, Calif, and The Burlington Hotel, in Port Costa, Calif. I rather like it myself. It reminds me of my childhood.

(We didn't have it at home but other places did, along with the velvet Elvis paintings, Dogs Playing Poker, and a whole lotta faux middle eastern wrought iron accessories, furniture, and light fixtures.)