Hello, my name is Craig Phillips and today I am going to show you how to strip this old
wallpaper, prepare it all up, then we are going to line the surface so it ready for
painting or wallpapering. The materials and tools that you are going to need to do your
preparation is a steam wallpaper stripper, various scrapers, quick drying filler, sandpaper
or if you prefer and electric sander, a bucket of warm water, and a sponge. Now there is
many types of wallpaper that you may come accross that need stripping, this particular
one behind me is called a woodchip. It is very common in old houses and very stubborn
to get off aswell. The best way I have found is with a heavy duty scraper like this. You
start off by just taking the top surface of woodchip of the paper itself. Now the great
thing about using a scraper to scrape off all them chips of wood out of the wallpaper
is that it allows your soapy water to penetrate through. What tends to happen with this woodchip
wallpaper, its been there for years. Many people might have painted it with a satin
paint, or a silk paint and all of a sudden it creates a bit of a waterproof finish on
there, and your water will just slip off. By scoring it, it allows it to soak through
and then you can strip it off alot easier. Now electric steamers are a great way of getting
the wallpaper off when it is really stubborn, you fill them up with warm water, turn it
on and once it gets to boiling point the steam comes through this pad, you place it onto
the surface and let it build up for a while, and once you remove that, as you can see the
paper starts to come off a lot easier. Once you have stripped all of the wallpaper off,
its a dirty job but it is certainly worth it, you might find that you have got some
small defects in the existing plasterwork where it is breaking away. You must repair
these before you put your new paper on. Get yourself a paintbrish witha little bit of
water on it and wipe it accross, that will take off all the dust. That will help the
new adhesive actually stick to it. Now getting a quick drying filler and using a standard
scraper, apply that in making sure that you are covering all of the hole. Once you have
cocered that, leave it for about 5 or 10 minutes, smooth it off a little bit more and once it
is fully dry and cured you can sand over it and your ready to paper. Now you have left
the filler to dry, it is ready to sand down before you start painting or wallpapering.
Now if you have got a lot of sanding to do, it may be wise to invest into a good electrical
sander. This palm sander is perfect for doing rooms this size. Now the nature of this old
plasterwork, before you paint or wallpaper it, it is going to need sealing. I have diluted
some PVA with cold water and am simply applying this on with a roller.
Now the tools and materials your are going to require is your linning wall paper, your
wall paper guide knife, decorating scissors, a scraper, your brushes, wall paper smoother,
a tape measure, a pencil and adhesive to apply the paper with. Now the first stage is to
measuer and cut your paper correctly. Once you have measured and you have got the correct
sizeof your walls at home, allow an extra 4 inches both top and bottom to allow it to
be cut nice and tight against the celing and the skirting board. When cutting your paper
to shape, make sure that you get a nice 90º degree cut on there, roll the paper back over
the one below, line it up both top and bottom, then put a crease down one edge. Then using
your decorating scissors, cut it down to length. It is always wise to work out how many lengths
of wallpaper you are going to require to do the full wall or full room. It is far easier
and cleaner marking it out and cutting them down to size while the pasting table is clean.
Now applying the wallpaper adhesive is real important, it can be put on two ways, one
with a four inch paintbrush or the second way is with a roller. Eaither way you have
got to cover the entire area of the paper, making sure you have got an equal amount all
the way across. Now you have pasted your paper to the full length of the board, what you
are going to need to do is slide it along, it is okay to lap it ontop of one andother
like that, and that allows you to slide the paper along and get to the other end. Now
you have pasted the whole length of paper it is very important to apply it to the wall
straight away. Lining wallpapers can be fitted horizontally or vertically. Using you wallpaper
smoother, start to come down the center to start with, then working out from left to
right, making sure that there is no air bubbles and not too much adhesive behind the paper.
It is very important to trim the bottom of the paper down so that it is a nice snug fit
to the skirting board. A great way of doing this is after using your wallpaper smoother,
take it downas far as you can, nice and tight into the skirting board. And then get your
scraper and just do a gentle line, be careful you don't tear the paper, you just want to
create a nice crease nice a nd tight to where the skirting board meets the bottom of the
plaster. Once you have got your crease, if you pull thataway you should be able to indentify
exactly where it is. Taking your decorating scissors, slowly and carefully cut along your
crease. Once the paper is in place and completed, using a damp cloth wipe down the walls either
side. I am now about to hang the last piece of wallpaper nice and tight into the corner.
I don't need my full width of 550mm so I have cut the main piece in half. This is going
to make it easier to paste up first and then also to apply it and cut it nice and snug
into the corner. Now as mentioned earlier, the last piece is the smallest piece, and
I want to give it a nice tight fit into the corner But ofcourse, corners are never perfectly
square or level, so it is a great to use one of these decorating brushes to stab it in
nice and tight into the corner and that kind of curves around the shape of the corner.
And then againscore it using your scraper, and then you can trim it down using you decorating
scissors the same way as you do the top and the bottom. And that is your lining paper
now complete, let this fully dry out for about a week and then it is your choice whether
you want to paint it or wallpaper over it. If you want any further tips on DIY skills
or any information on the tools we have used, please visit the website silverlinetools.com