How can I remove painted over wallpaper?

Hi, I just bought a house and realized that the owner has painter over wallpaper in the kitchen, how do I remove the wall paper now? Renters want a different color.
  4 answers
  • William William on Apr 20, 2016
    Start by scoring the outer layer of paint with a stiff wire brush or wallpaper scoring tool. Prevent damaging your walls by only using medium pressure. Use a wallpaper stripper or a mixture of water, vinegar, and fabric softener in a spray bottle. To prevent wall damage only spray small workable sections at a time. Let the mixture soak into the wallpaper for a few minutes. Next, you will need a 3-in-1 scraper tool. Use the sharpest corner to get underneath the painted wallpaper and start scraping away. I recommend scraping in alternating directions.
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    • William William on Apr 21, 2016
      @Sharon Bartee I have done this many times for clients. I remember one bathroom I did had three, THREE, layers of wall paper. One on top of each other. THAT was a headache!
  • Gwen Gwen on Apr 21, 2016
    My sister in law had done this to herself when lazy one day. Sadly, the paper with paint on top did not budge. She hired a professional and saved herself a lot of time and frustration. They finished quickly and left the area ready for painting. She was struggling so much she actually damaged her wall trying to get the paper off!! Of course one wants to save money, but in this case, time is money. No renters as you work to peel painted paper equals no income.
  • Rebecca Platt Rebecca Platt on Apr 21, 2016
    I've done this many times. You can try to take it off yourself but if you do, you will have to sand the walls because you will never get off all the glue and it looks horrible if you try to paint over it. If you prime your walls and make sure all seams totally flat and secure you can easily paint over it. Just don't go real light in color and use a quality paint.
    • William William on Apr 21, 2016
      @Rebecca Platt You are right. There are some wallpaper pastes that leave a residue that cannot be washed off. Clay based paste are the worst, they will need to be sanded. Generally they are used in commercial applications, but heavy vinyl wallpaper won't hold with regular paste. Prepasted wallpaper is usually wheat or vinyl paste.
  • Cindy Cindy on Apr 21, 2016
    A heat gun works well