Wallpaper removal
Wallpaper removal and painting
The condition of the wall behind the paper affects the preparation and price. We inspect the wall before providing a written quote.
Why not just paint over it
People ask, and occasionally it's the right call, but usually it isn't.
Water-based paint puts moisture into the paper and the paste behind it. The paper swells, the paste lets go, and within days you get bubbles and lifting seams that weren't there before you started. Every seam and every embossed pattern also telegraphs straight through the new colour, so you've spent the money and the wall still looks like wallpaper.
Where painting over it can work is a single layer of flat, well-stuck vinyl paper with tight seams, sealed first with an oil-based or specialist primer, not a standard undercoat. We'll say if that's what you've got. It's the exception.
Checking the wall beneath the paper
Stripping the paper is the easy half. What's underneath decides the job, and there's no way to know until a corner comes up.
Best case: paper comes off in sheets, the plasterboard underneath was sealed before it was papered, and the wall needs a wash, a light sand and a coat of sealer.
Common case: the paper was hung straight onto unsealed plasterboard. The paste has bonded to the paper face of the board, and pulling the wallpaper tears the top layer of the board away with it. That leaves a furry, uneven surface that needs sealing and skimming before it will take paint.
Older houses: lath and plaster walls, sometimes with four or five layers of paper going back decades, occasionally with hessian and newspaper as a backing. It comes off slowly and the plaster underneath is often cracked in ways the paper was holding together.
So we don't quote wallpaper from a photo. We come out, lift a corner, and give you one fixed number the same day, with our best guess at which of the three above you've got built into it. If the rest of the wall turns out worse than the corner we saw, that's our problem, not yours. The price doesn't move.
How we do it
Steam and scoring, mostly, working in sections and keeping the mess contained instead of filling the room with wet paper. Floors get sheeted properly, because wallpaper paste on a floorboard is difficult to remove.
We wash off the paste before filling, sanding and sealing the wall. Remaining paste can stop the new paint from bonding.
Power points and switches come off instead of being cut around, since wallpaper always runs behind them and a torn edge at a switch plate is the first thing you notice.
What affects the price
- How many layers there are, which we can often tell at a corner
- Whether the wall was sealed before it was papered, which is the single biggest variable
- How much skimming the wall needs afterwards
- Ceiling height, and whether it's the whole room or one feature wall
- Whether the house is old enough for the layers underneath to need checking before sanding
Going the other way
If what you're after is the look of a papered feature wall without the paper, panelling and a strong colour do it and they don't peel. That's on the feature walls page.
Once the walls are stripped and made good, the repaint itself runs like any other interior job, covered on the interior painting page.
Preparation and aftercare
Read our painting preparation and aftercare guide for arranging access, protecting belongings and checking when the painted surface is ready to use or clean.
Got wallpaper you want gone?
Send a photo, and a close-up of a corner or a seam if you can lift one. A close-up helps us assess the paper and underlying surface.
Free quote