Wall paper removal 101:

I feel quite ridiculous for the procrastinating I did on the wall paper border removal. After the huge undertaking in removing wall paper from the entire room of our current spare bedroom/soon to be nursery 2 years ago, I've been terrified of wall paper.

So, obviously, I've been putting off removing the wall paper border in my bathroom.

I had already ripped off the paper, so all that was remaining was the backing/glue (the worst part for peeling, right?). This morning, it was time to finish. I wanted to finish prepping the walls for paint (though we have no set time frame on when we'll actually do the painting).

I had to do some research first. The water and fabric softener solution we used last time was a pain. And really messy. I needed something I wouldn't mind Monkey getting into knowing she would be at my feet most of the time I was working.

Enter Google.

I used a handheld scrapbooking tool I have for scoring the paper. Then I sprayed it with my 1/3 vinegar:2/3 water mixture. Be sure to have a rag handy for catching the running liquid if you don't want a puddle on the floor.

I saw a few different sets of instructions online. They all said it was really easy, but I didn't believe them. One said to soak 5-10 minutes, another to soak for 15 and yet another to let it soak for 30 minutes. Unnecessary. I could actually SEE when it had soaked through (within a minute).

I then used my big putty knife to scrape it up. It was like putting butter on warm bread.

Voila!

It took me more time to prep my spray bottle of water and vinegar than it did to scrape the paper off the wall. I'd say it took about 20 minutes total (including working around Monkey and clean up).

Now I just need to research how I want to clean off the glue before we paint.

Have some wall paper you want gone? Give this a try!