How does one get wallpaper border off the wall?

Teresa
by Teresa
When we bought our place it has 12 inch wide wallpaper border up on only 3 of the 4 walls in our dining room and one end had started coming down on its own and so my husband went and pulled on it thinking that the rest would follow. But of coarse it wasn't that easy! But he decided to keep ripping anyway! So now it is half on half off! Has been like that awhile and I'm tired of looking at it and mad that he left it like that. The border has been up for over 15 yrs. I know that you can buy stuff to take it down easy but I lost my job due to Hurricane Matthew and we are out of money to really do anything much!
  5 answers
  • Janet Pizaro Janet Pizaro on Apr 20, 2017

    Try spring it down with a mixture of water and fabric softener.

  • William William on Apr 20, 2017

    I use 50/50 hot water and vinegar in a spray bottle. Spray it on, let it soak in, then scrape off.

  • CecileH CecileH on Apr 21, 2017

    Both the previous ideas work well, get yourself a 3-4" putty knife to gently scrap off the border as you go with either the vinegar or fabric softener sprays (if you use the fabric softener make sure you use tsp or vinegar solution to rinse off the wall before applying anything else. DO NOT dig at it or you can take off the top layer of dry wall which would not be good!

  • Cha9441623 Cha9441623 on Apr 23, 2017

    Step #1 is to peel off the "face" of the wallpaper border. That leaves a paper thin backing. Next, put hot water in a spray bottle and spray this backing material. Let the water do the work. You may want to spray it 2 or 3 times. Use a spackling knife to scrape it off after it softens with the water. Don't waste your time spraying the face of the paper since this is water resistant and will not penetrate. You can use the vinegar or the fabric softener or just the hot water. You are going to get streaks on the walls so I hope you are planning on painting the room. If you are not planning to paint, I'd go with just the hot water and hope it dries without leaving streaks.

  • Teresa Teresa on Apr 24, 2017

    Thank you all for the advice! I will try every one