Stripping wallpaper - how hard is it?

[WhereAreWeNow]

We need to redecorate our bedroom. When we moved in it had painted over wallpaper. We've since painted over it again so it's got at least two coats of paint on it and it's starting to peel away. It looks terrible .

I've never stripped wallpaper and all the guides I've looked at online make it look like a hugely messy and difficult process. Is it as difficult as it looks? Would we be better off paying someone to do it for us?

Thanks

One thing that will give you an idea on how good or bad your plaster is, is to knock on the wall; if it sounds hollow then the likelihood is that the plaster is blown, and your probably going to need to replaster, or patch at the least. If it sounds nice and solid then it’s more likely you’ll be ok. Sorry if that’s a bit basic or obvious but you can tell quite a lot with this simple test.

We stripped our bedroom this week, paint on top of wallpaper and it would of been impossible without a steamer. We got one from screw fix for about £20 and it's been brilliant.

'I had several layers of wallpaper on walls in a victorian house and it had been painted over a few times. Get a wallpaper stripper. it's not difficult but it's a little messy. Keep a bin bag handy and fill it as you go along. Wear gloves as the paper might be tacky.
Look online for youtube videos.

should I still give it a go but just be prepared to call a plasterer if it all goes wrong?!

This.

Definitely hire the stripper and DIY, you will be able to hire a bigger, better one than you would want to pay to buy. But be prepared to pay to fix any plasterwork problems afterwards.

Score the paper with a knife/tool first so that the steam gets through to the glue underneath the paper. As others say, it's messy but satisfying. Clear the room of everything and cover the carpet (or any other floor covering).

Partly depends on what it has been painted over with. You can get a scoring tool to 'break though' the paint to allow the paper steamer to get behind the paint (or you could probably use a hedgehog but they seem to be quite rare these days... maybe everybody stripping their old wall paper?)

The strippers are pretty inexpensive. Probably cheaper than hiring one.
Or ask around (freecycle etc) then either give it back or pass it on.

Give it a go, but bear in mind the paper coming off the wall is messy.
It's not the quickest of jobs, but you'll get a sense of achievement from doing it.

Go for it. And as you say, be prepared to ask for help if needed. When I did my old Victorian terraced house, I must have taken off about five layers of paper. There were a few odd patches of lumpy plaster and then I started behind the door... about two square feet of plaster came off. I almost died! It had a different finish to the rest of the plaster so it looked like an area had previously been patched for some reason. But I was able to fill it myself, three layers of some polyfilla plaster repair stuff. It wasn't perfectly flat but most of the walls weren't perfect anyway.

One thing I would advise, if you're happy to do so, is to use a non-sheen paint and the stippled roller which will help disguise any imperfections in the surface.

It's called 'papering over the cracks' for a reason.

Use a steamer. Hold on the wall a few seconds at a time. The longer you hold it, the more likely you will blow the plaster. It will be sticky, messy but really satisfying.

And much less smutty than that sounds

Sugar soap properly after as the paint may not go on properly if you leave paste on the wall.

Our house is older than yours and we've stripped paper from every room. No blown plaster. Some we painted, some repaired. Partly depends how perfect you want the finish. Old plaster will always be slightly wobbly. If you want super smooth, you will need to skim.

Or you could use lining paper

We are stripping wallpaper in our Victorian house.

With a steamer.

Painted anaglypta that has been on at least 30 years I'd say, with another layer of wallpaper underneath. It's hard going! Then half the plaster has come off in places.

It will be worth it in the end when it's replastered and nicely painted, but right now I'm wishing we had just pained over the anaglypta and lived with it!

Oh @greengrey that sound like tough going!
I don't know how I've got to my 40s without ever having stripped wallpaper. It sounds really daunting.

I'v stripped lots of wallpaper. If it's really dried out you often don't need to use water/steam and it'll come off in large chunks. If it's still well stuck it's easier to steam/wet. We then sand it.

I prefer to use a garden sprayer rather than a steamer. Mist the walls lightly, by the time you have worked all round the room the place where you started will have soaked in and be ready for another spray. If it is woodchip, use a broad metal scraper to get some of the scabs off and the water will soak in. As it becomes wetter it will be easier to scrape off more.

Start stripping at the top of the walls and keep spraying so the water can run down behind the paper. The more you keep misting the wetter it will get.

Excess water will just run off onto the floor so no point. Just mist.

Take a dustbin and bin bags in before you start and throw the stripped paper in. Wet paper is very slippery.

Spray and scrape the walls again after the paper is off to remove paste sludge and paper snots.