painting, etc

I recently bought a 40+ year old home and the people who lived here before weren't the cleanest.

I need to do a lot of indoor painting but there are some problems.

1) I have to remove a lot of wallpaper. Are the removal liquids the way to go? (First you score the paper liberally, then spray with the solution and then scrape the paper off. Then you repeat to get the glue off)

2) Should I use a TSP solution to clean the baseboards, etc of dust and miscellaneous yuk?

TIA for any help you can offer, bonnie

Reply to
Bonnie Jean
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"Bonnie Jean" wrote in news:13d0gtsmsgn1l51 @corp.supernews.com:

I tried the lquids. When I ran out I only had a little left to do so I used warm water. Came off just as easy. What I did was pull the paper off the wall. Separates from the backing. Wet the backing a few times. Some parts peeled off in sheets. Some I had to fight with piece by piece. All depends on how it was put up & with what.

Rinse wall off a couple of times, let it dry good, make any repairs from holes/gouges/removing wallpaper/fists, PRIME to seal mud/spackle, paint.

I've just use warm water and the procedure just mentioned from then on.

Believe it or not I found some decent cost effective stuff at Wal-Mart called Mean Green

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It's a cleaner/degreaser.

Then there's Greased lightning which is awesome stuff. Careful with this one. Can ruin certain finishes. See label.

Reply to
Al Bundy

Quote: Bonnie Jean wrote on Sat, 25 August 2007 09:59

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The liquids worked a lot better than the "steamer" tool we first tried. However, be careful with the scoring tool. We got a little too aggressive and got into the sheetrock a bit.

I guess you've seen the scoring tools. We used the "paper tiger"

see:

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It was easy to use, but like I said, don't put too much pressure on it.

-- Richard Thoms President - Top Service Pros, Inc. Connecting Homeowners and Local Service Professionals

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Reply to
Richard Thoms

You never really know about wallpaper removal until you try it. Some wallpaper happily peels right off the wall with no problem. Other paper can put up a fight like you wouldn't believe. I've had both. The worst of it is usually in the bathroom, where industrial-strength glue is sometimes used, because of the heat and humidity of a bathroom.

Two warnings from my own mistakes:

1) Don't push too hard with the paper tiger. As Richard pointed out, it can damage the sheetrock, but you don't know the extent of the damage until you finally get the paper off and find out that you've torn up the entire wall. Push lightly, but run the paper tiger over every square nanometer of the wall twice before you start spraying.

2) Go easy on yourself using that paper remover that comes in a spray bottle (like Windex)! I sprayed a large area, and had to do it over and over (getting increasingly more aggressive with the paper tiger each time). By the time I got the wallpaper off, my elbow hurt like all get-out from squeezing that little sprayer ten billion times. Eventually I gave in and went to the doctor, and found out I had tennis elbow. My arm hurt like heck for a couple months, and took almost two years before my elbow was fully back to normal.

B> I recently bought a 40+ year old home and the people who lived here

Reply to
BZ

Professionals

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I have removed a lot of wallpaper and have had very good luck with a steamer. It depends on the paper and the glue. What I found to work best is to get the paper wet first( good and wet) then steam it. The first steamer I used was a rental one. For the rest of my jobs I purchased a Wagner steamer. It's not as good as one of the rental ones but it does work, it just takes a little longer. They make a palm scrapper that work really well for removing the paper. The secret is to keep it wet and have patience.

Good luck,

Reply to
jimmyDahGeek

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