How to Remove Wallpaper Without Damaging Your Walls
Learn how to remove wallpaper cleanly so your walls are ready for a fresh design from No Two Houses
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To remove wallpaper without damaging your walls, work in this order: clear and protect the room, score the paper, soak it with warm water and a little fabric softener or a removal solution, wait, then scrape gently with a wide blade. Clear the leftover glue, repair any dings and prime before you hang anything new.
Stripping a room back to bare walls is one of those jobs that feels bigger in your head than it is on the ladder. The paper that has been quietly dating your dining room since the previous owners is, in most cases, a few hours of patient soaking and scraping away from gone. The trick is to let water and time do the heavy lifting rather than muscle, because muscle is what tears drywall. This guide walks through the full method, compares the three main approaches, and finishes with how to leave the wall in better shape than you found it.
What do you need to remove wallpaper?
Most of the kit for how to remove wallpaper is already in your garage or under the sink. Gather everything before you start so you are not dripping across the hallway looking for a bucket.
- A wallpaper scoring tool (the small hand-held kind with spiked wheels) or, for very thin paper, nothing at all
- A bucket of warm water and either a capful of liquid fabric softener or a purpose-made wallpaper removal solution
- A pump sprayer, a large sponge or a paint roller to apply the liquid
- A wide, flexible putty knife or wallpaper scraper, ideally 4–6 in (10–15 cm) across, with rounded corners
- Drop cloths or plastic sheeting, painter's tape and heavy-duty trash bags
- A stepladder, rubber gloves and a few clean rags
- Optional: a wallpaper steamer, a sanding sponge, lightweight joint compound and a wallpaper primer or sealer for the finish
How do you prepare a room before stripping wallpaper?
Preparation is where most of the mess, and most of the wall damage, gets prevented. Give yourself twenty minutes here and the rest of the job stays civilized.
Move furniture to the middle of the room or out entirely, and cover what stays with plastic. Lay drop cloths along the full length of each wall and tape them to the baseboard so wet paper and runoff land on the sheeting rather than the floor. Switch off power to the room at the breaker, remove outlet and switch plates, and cover the exposed boxes with painter's tape; you are about to spray water on the walls, and water and live electricity are not a pairing to improvise with. Open a window for airflow, and if the room is carpeted, consider a second layer of plastic. Finally, run your hand over the wall. Bubbles, lifting seams and chalky patches tell you how firmly the paper is stuck and where to start.
How to remove wallpaper step by step
This is the core method for how to strip wallpaper of almost any age. Work one wall at a time, top to bottom, and resist the urge to speed up once the first sheet comes away cleanly.
- Test a corner first. Lift a loose edge at a seam or corner and pull slowly at a low angle. Some papers, especially many non-woven wallpapers, are designed to peel away dry in full strips, in which case you may only need to deal with a little residue. Others leave a paper backing behind or refuse to budge. The test tells you how much soaking lies ahead.
- Score the surface. If the paper has a vinyl or coated face, water will bead off it. Run a scoring tool over the wall in light, overlapping circles so it perforates the paper without digging into the drywall. Keep the pressure gentle; the goal is thousands of pinholes, not grooves.
- Mix your solution. Fill a bucket with warm (not boiling) water and add a capful of fabric softener, or follow the directions on a wallpaper removal solution. Warm water softens old adhesive; the softener or solution helps it release from the wall.
- Soak a manageable section. Using a pump sprayer, sponge or roller, wet a stretch about 3 ft (90 cm) wide from ceiling to baseboard. Apply enough to saturate the paper without streaming down the wall. Give it 10–15 minutes to work, re-wetting if the surface starts to dry.
- Scrape at a low angle. Slide the putty knife under a seam and push forward at roughly 30 degrees, keeping the blade flat against the wall. Let the softened paper come to you. Where it resists, stop, re-wet and wait rather than levering harder.
- Remove the backing layer. Many papers come away in two stages: the decorative face first, then a thin paper backing. Soak the backing on its own, wait again, and it will usually slide off in satisfying sheets.
- Bag as you go. Wet wallpaper is heavy and sticks to everything it touches. Drop each strip straight into a trash bag so you are not peeling it off your shoes later.
Keep a rag handy to wipe the blade. A clean, flat edge glides; a gummed-up one catches and gouges.
Scraping, soaking or steaming: which wallpaper removal method is best?
Each of the three main approaches earns its place depending on the paper, the wall and how many rooms you have ahead of you. Most jobs end up combining soaking and scraping, with steam held in reserve for the stubborn corners.
Method | Best for | Watch out for | Effort and mess |
Dry scraping or peeling | Papers that are already lifting; many non-woven wallpapers that strip dry | Tearing the drywall face if you pull too fast or at too steep an angle | Low mess, fast when it works, frustrating when it does not |
Soaking (warm water with fabric softener or removal solution) | Standard paper and lightly coated wallpapers, most older residential walls | Oversaturating drywall; needs patience and repeat applications | Moderate mess, low cost, the most reliable all-rounder |
Steaming | Multiple layers, heavily glued paper, plaster walls, painted-over wallpaper | Scalding steam, softened drywall paper, bubbling plaster if held too long | Higher setup, heavy equipment, fastest on difficult walls |
As a rule, start with the gentlest method the paper allows and escalate only when a section refuses to cooperate. The order you escalate in is also the order of risk to the wall beneath.
Is removing wallpaper with a steamer worth it?
Removing wallpaper with a steamer makes sense when you are facing several layers, a paper that has been painted over, or a large home where soaking every wall by hand would take a week of evenings. A steamer forces hot vapor through the paper and loosens adhesive far faster than a sprayer can.
To use one, fill the tank, let it come up to temperature and hold the plate flat against the wall for 15–30 seconds, then move it along while you scrape the section you have just steamed. Work from the bottom up so rising steam softens the paper above you. Keep a dry rag over the plate's edge to catch drips.
A few cautions keep the job safe. Steam is hot enough to scald, so wear gloves and long sleeves and never point the plate toward your face. On drywall, keep the plate moving; prolonged heat softens the paper face of the board and leaves a fuzzy, fragile surface. On old plaster, excessive steam can loosen the bond between plaster and lath, so listen for hollow sounds and ease off where you hear them. Keep the steamer's cord well away from puddles and the wall you are wetting.
How do you remove wallpaper glue left on the wall?
Knowing how to remove wallpaper glue is the step that separates a wall that takes new paper beautifully from one that bubbles within a month. Once the paper is gone, run your palm over the surface. Any tackiness or shine is residual adhesive.
Mix a fresh bucket of warm water with a small squirt of dish soap or the same removal solution, and work in sections again. Sponge the wall generously, wait a few minutes for the glue to soften, then pull the putty knife across the surface at a low angle to lift the sludge. Follow with a clean, damp sponge, rinsing often. Repeat until the wall feels smooth and matte when dry.
Stubborn patches respond to a slightly hotter solution and a plastic scouring pad rather than more pressure from a metal blade. Change your water frequently; dirty water simply moves glue around. Let the wall dry fully, ideally overnight, before you judge whether another pass is needed.
How do you repair and prime walls before hanging new wallpaper?
A wall that has just lost its paper usually has a few scars to show for it. Dealing with them now takes an hour; dealing with them after your new wallpaper is up is not possible.
- Fill nail holes, small gouges and torn drywall paper with lightweight joint compound using a flexible knife, feathering the edges thin
- Where the brown paper face of drywall has torn, seal it with a coat of primer or sealer before filling, so the compound does not raise the fibers
- Sand filled areas smooth with a fine sanding sponge once dry, then wipe away all dust with a damp cloth
- Check that the wall is completely dry, with no cool or dark patches, before priming
- Apply a wallpaper primer or sealer across the whole wall; it gives the new adhesive an even surface to grip and makes the next removal, years from now, far easier
- Allow the primer to cure according to its directions before you reach for the paste
With the wall sound, sealed and smooth, you are ready for the part everyone prefers. Our guide on how to hang wallpaper picks up exactly here, and if you are choosing between adhesives, the planned wallpaper paste guide covers which paste suits which paper. Paste-the-wall papers, which include every design in the Martha Stewart wallpaper collection, go up with adhesive applied directly to this freshly primed surface, so the prep you have just done is doing double duty.
What changes if your walls are plaster rather than drywall?
The method stays the same; the margin for error does not. Drywall is a layer of gypsum sandwiched between paper faces, and that outer paper is what your scraper is sliding over. Too steep an angle, too much force or too much water, and you tear it, leaving a fuzzy brown patch that needs sealing and filling. On drywall, keep every soak short, keep the blade flat and let the solution work longer rather than scraping harder.
Plaster, common in older US homes, is harder and more forgiving of a scraper, which is why professionals are happier to steam it. Its weaknesses are different: hairline cracks, areas that have come loose from the lath behind them, and old lime plaster that can crumble under sustained heat. Tap before you steam, and treat any hollow-sounding area gently and briefly. Either way, download our How to Remove Wallpaper guide to keep a printable version by the ladder.
Wallpaper removal tips that save the wall
A few habits make the difference between a tidy afternoon and a repair project.
- Work in natural light where you can; low, raking light shows seams, glue and tears you would otherwise miss
- Keep two buckets going, one for solution and one for clean rinse water, and change both often
- Use the widest blade that fits the space; narrow blades concentrate force and dig in
- Never use a razor-edged scraper on drywall
- If paper has been painted over, score more thoroughly and expect to soak twice
- Take breaks; most gouges happen in the last tired half hour
- Photograph the bare wall before priming so you remember where repairs sit if anything telegraphs through later
It is worth saying plainly: removing wallpaper is not the ordeal its reputation suggests. Modern paste the wall wallpaper in particular is designed with the end of its life in mind, and the knowledge that a wall can be changed again is a good reason to be bold with what goes on it next.
Frequently asked questions about removing wallpaper
How long does it take to remove wallpaper from one room?
Allow a full day for an average bedroom with a single layer of paper, including glue removal and drying time. Multiple layers, painted-over paper or plaster walls can stretch that to two days.
Can you wallpaper over old wallpaper instead of removing it?
It is possible only when the existing paper is a single, flat, firmly bonded layer, but the result is rarely as good as papering a clean, primed wall, and any future removal becomes much harder. Stripping back is almost always the better long-term choice.
How do you remove old wallpaper that has been painted over?
Score the painted surface thoroughly so liquid can reach the paper beneath, then soak longer than usual or use a steamer. Expect to work in smaller sections and to make several passes.
Does fabric softener really help remove wallpaper?
A capful of liquid fabric softener in warm water helps loosen many traditional wallpaper adhesives and is a widely used household alternative to purpose-made removal solutions. Purpose-made products are formulated for the task and are worth using on stubborn or heavily glued walls.
Is it easier to remove non-woven wallpaper?
Many non-woven wallpapers are designed to strip away dry in whole sheets, which can make removal considerably quicker. Always test a corner first, as results depend on the paste used, the wall preparation and how long the paper has been up.
Ready to start again with something you love?
A bare, primed wall is the most optimistic surface in the house. Now that you know how to remove wallpaper without leaving a mark, the only question is what deserves to go up in its place. Browse the full Martha Stewart wallpaper collection at No Two Houses, from tailored stripes and faux bois to archival-inspired florals, or explore all wallpaper to see the wider range. Every design has an order sample option, so you can hold a few against that fresh wall before you commit.
