11 Tips for Stripping Wallpaper: How to Get Rid of Ugly Wallpaper!

I broke my promise to myself and stripped wallpaper again. The only reason I did this is for $100,000 profit. My family and I did not have time to wait for professional help. We sold our investment property before finishing the work and needed the home ready for appraisal.

While stripping the wallpaper, I realized that many homemakers get wrong advice for this horrendous task. After years of experience on 28 houses, I offer my tried and best tips:

1. Use a clothes steamer or rent a professional steamer
2. Soak a large section of the wall
3. Run a "Paper Tiger" scoring tool across the damp section
4. Steam the section again
5. Spray the section with fabric softener and hot water
6. Score the section with the paper tiger again
7. Steam again
8. Remove any curling edges (sometimes large areas peel off)
9. Scrape with a six inch sheetrock blade
10. Repeat the above steps on the section until most scrapes off easily
11. Scrub with hot water, TSP, and a sponge with a scratchy surface

Don't live with ugly wallpaper any longer!

P. S. Please email me if you have any additional tips that would help others!

(c) Copyright 2004, Jeanette J. Fisher. All rights reserved.

Professor Jeanette Fisher, author of Doghouse to Dollhouse for Dollars, Joy to the Home, and other books teaches Real Estate Investing and Design Psychology. For more articles, tips, reports, newsletters, and sales flyer template, see http://www.doghousetodollhouse fordollars.com/pages/5/index.htm

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Rep. Jack Franks (D-Woodstock) votes to recommend the impeachment of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to the House during an Illinois House Impeachment Committee hearing Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009, in Springfield, Ill. The committee voted unanimously to recommend impeachment putting the matter before the full house.  (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)AP - A key panel unanimously recommended Thursday that Gov. Rod Blagojevich be impeached for abusing his power, mismanaging Illinois government and committing possible criminal acts.



Vice President Dick Cheney pauses during an interview with the Associated Press at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009 in Washington. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)AP - Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday that he sees no reason for President George W. Bush to pre-emptively pardon anyone at the CIA involved in harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists. "I don't have any reason to believe that anybody in the agency did anything illegal," he said. In an interview with The Associated Press, Cheney also said that Bush has no need to apologize for not foreseeing the economic crisis.



President-elect Barack Obama speaks about the economy, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009, at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)AP - President-elect Barack Obama's proposed tax cuts ran into opposition Thursday from senators in his own party who said they wouldn't do much to stimulate the economy or create jobs. Senators from both parties agreed that Congress should do something to stimulate the economy. But Democratic senators emerging from a private meeting of the Senate Finance Committee criticized business and individual tax cuts in Obama's stimulus plan.



Palestinian demonstrators use sling-shots to hurl stones at Israeli soldiers during a demonstration against Israel's military operation in Gaza, in the West Bank village of Bilin, near Ramallah,Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009. Israel resumed its Gaza offensive Wednesday after a three-hour lull to allow delivery of humanitarian aid, bombing heavily around suspected smuggling tunnels near the border with Egypt. Despite the heavy fighting, strides appeared to be being made on the diplomatic front with the U.S. throwing its weight behind a deal being brokered by France and Egypt. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)AP - The U.N. suspended food deliveries to Gaza and the Red Cross accused Israel of blocking medical assistance after forces fired on aid workers, killing two, as the threat of a wider conflict emerged with Lebanon.



President-elect Barack Obama makes remarks on the nations economy, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009, at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)AP - President-elect Barack Obama implored Congress on Thursday to "act boldly and act now" to fix an economy growing perilously weaker. Leading lawmakers set an informal goal of mid-February for enacting tax cuts and government spending that could cost as much as $1 trillion.



In this Jan. 5, 2009 file photo, disgraced financier Bernard Madoff leaves U.S. District Court in Manhattan after a bail hearing in New York. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File)AP - The many Bernard Madoff investors who withdrew money from their accounts over the years are now wrestling with an ethical and legal quandary.



Directors of the BART transit agency listen to public comments on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009, in Oakland, Calif. Speakers criticized the agency for its handling of a New Year’s Days incident involving a BART police officer who shot and killed unarmed 22-year-old Oscar Grant. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)AP - In grainy cell-phone videos played over and over on the Internet, police officers force an unarmed black man to the ground and hold him face-down on a crowded train platform. Suddenly one of the officers draws his gun and fatally shoots the man in the back — then looks up.



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Egyptian citizens look at rising smoke during Israeli strikes at the Gaza Strip, in the Egyptian border city of Rafah January 7, 2009. (Asmaa Waguih/Reuters)Reuters - Recovery teams ventured into battlegrounds of the Gaza Strip on Thursday to gather bodies from the rubble, and Hamas officials said the Palestinian toll in Israel's 13 day-old offensive rose to 765 dead.



President-elect Barack Obama at a news conference in Chicago, December 7, 2008. (Jeff Haynes/Reuters)Reuters - President-elect Barack Obama warned on Thursday that the U.S. economy could stay mired in recession for years without bold action and he urged lawmakers to work day and night to pass a massive stimulus plan.



People taking the Long Island Foreclosure Tour arrive at a foreclosed home for sale in New Hyde Park, New York in this May 17, 2008 file photo. Citigroup could soon agree to principles that would let troubled borrowers save their homes through bankruptcy, sources familiar with the talks said on Thursday, while industry groups are easing their opposition to the plan. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)Reuters - Financial giant Citigroup Inc has agreed to support a rewrite of bankruptcy law being proposed in the U.S. Congress to help troubled mortgage borrowers avoid foreclosure, lawmakers said on Thursday.



Virginia Governor Tim Kaine (L) delivers remarks after being announced as the new Democratic National Committee chairman by U.S. President-elect Barack Obama in Washington, January 8, 2009. (Jim Young/Reuters)Reuters - President-elect Barack Obama named Tim Kaine as head of the Democratic Party on Thursday, rewarding an early supporter with a high-profile political post even as he continues to serve as Virginia governor.



Bernard Madoff is escorted from Federal Court in New York January 5, 2009. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)Reuters - Accused swindler Bernard Madoff had signed checks totaling more than $173 million in his office desk ready to be sent out before his arrest, U.S. prosecutors said in court papers on Thursday asking a judge to jail him.



Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich gestures as he announces former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris as his choice to fill the vacant U.S. Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama during a news conference in Chicago, Illinois December 30, 2008. (Frank Polich/Reuters)Reuters - A legislative committee on Thursday recommended the impeachment of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, citing widespread abuse of power including allegations he tried to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.



A customer shops at a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Rogers, Arkansas, June 5, 2008. (Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters)Reuters - Wal-Mart Stores Inc and other top U.S. retailers delivered disappointing December same-store sales and profit warnings on Thursday, sparking fresh recession concerns that hit stock and currency markets.



A man works near a pressure gauge at a district heating plant in Skopje January 8, 2009. (Ognen Teofilovski/Reuters)Reuters - Europe on Friday looked for a swift restoration of gas supplies, after striking a deal with Moscow on monitoring gas shipments via Ukraine that have been halted by a rancorous pricing dispute with Kiev.



A wounded Palestinian is carried into Gaza City's al-Shifa hospital. Diplomatic efforts to end the Gaza conflict intensified Friday with Western and Arab diplomats agreeing to call for an immediate ceasefire as the death toll from the two-week-old war rose past 760.(AFP/Yassr Saymeh)AFP - Diplomatic efforts to end the Gaza conflict intensified Friday with Western and Arab diplomats agreeing to call for an immediate ceasefire as the death toll from the two-week-old war rose past 760.



A man carries firewood in the suburbs of Sofia, Bulgaria. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin agreed Thursday on the terms for the deployment of gas monitors in Ukraine, paving the way for an end to a Europe-wide energy crisis, the EU presidency said.(AFP/Dimitar Dilkoff)AFP - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin agreed Thursday on the terms for the deployment of gas monitors in Ukraine, paving the way for an end to a Europe-wide energy crisis, the EU presidency said.




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