Remove Cork Tiles From Wall

by Pam Hoepner

6 Materials

We updated a 70's den featuring a faux-painted ceiling, lighthouse border, and cork-covered wall into a toddler's cheery bedroom.

remove cork tiles from wall, diy, home maintenance repairs, tiling

When we moved into our 50-year-old house, it needed a lot of updating. We discovered pristine hardwood floors under nasty red and green shag carpet, for example, (score!) but one of the worst spots was the cork wall. It was going to be my son’s bedroom, but had probably been a den at some point. One entire wall was covered with glued-on 1 x 2 and 1/2 foot sheets of cork that were so rock hard so you couldn’t actually stick anything into them. There was also a lighthouse motif border and faux finish on the ceiling, but I digress…

So, my husband (who is an awesome handyman and up for any challenge the house could give him) got out his trusty wide putty knife and went to town scraping all that cork off. It just crumbled into bits and we carted out BOXES of it.

After that, all that was left was the sticky residue from the glue. We tried everything to get that glue off. Heat gun, solvents, more scraping. Nothing worked. There were some other very scary solvents out there that we heard about, but since it was going in a 3-year-old’s room, I really didn’t want to go there.

So, finally, we realized the only thing that made sense was to start over, so we simply covered it over with new drywall.

Then it was just taping and mudding.

And then priming.

After it was up, taped, and mudded, it looked great. Then we re-attached the baseboards and it was simply a matter of priming and painting it, along with the rest of the walls and ceiling to make it a little boy’s dream room. My son loved Thomas the tank engine, and light walls and vinyl decals brought it all together from the dingy dark cave it was before to a wonderfully light and airy room that my son enjoyed for several years…until he decided he liked pirates more. Oh well, that was also an easy change with paint, bedding and decor.

Here is the finished wall. Cork no more!