So gather your tools, Dif liquid (not jell), garden sprayer, drop cloth, putty knife and most importantly your patience. Most people don’t allow the tools do the work which is a technique all in itself.

            First things first is to move everything away from the area you want to work, once you get started you don’t want to stop because the chemicals have a time frame. Think about doing at least 2 large areas at a time, one for soaking chemical and one that ready to peel so get everything out of the way. I like using runner drop cloths that are thinner and easy to move around so put down drop cloths to cover the floor and make clean up easer. Wet wallpaper is sticky so keep all the remnants on the drop cloth and clean up often otherwise you trail it all over the house. Once it dries out it will re-stick itself to your wood floor. A second layer rolled up and placed up next to the baseboard will act as a blotter when you apply the DIF.

Hopefully the guy who hung the wallpaper you are attempting to remove applied sizer (primer) to the wall before he hung the paper. This will create a barrier to keep the glue from penetrating into the laminate of the drywall and will make removing it much easier. If you have a newer house and the builder installed the paper this can often be the case and you’re likely to damage the walls dramatically. Plaster walls are more forgiving and because the surface is much harder it can take more scraping and abuse.

            After the space is cleared and the floor is protected start but attempting to remove the paper dry, with no chemicals or water. Wallpaper is made in layers and most have a heavy vinyl laminate, or first layer glued on to a more fibrous paper backing. The objective is to separate the vinyl laminate from the paper backing. The thicker and stronger the vinyl laminate the easer the enter process is. Sometimes it peals easier from the top and sometime from the bottom. Take a putty knife and find a corner at a seam. After the corner is pulled back enough set the knife aside and using your hands attempt to peel back the corner slowly and evenly pulling at the corner from both edges to remove as much as possible without tearing the paper. The objective is to use the strength of the vinyl laminate because the moment you tear it, stop. If you can remove 75% of a full sheet without tearing, continue removing it dry. If it tears right away then stop, the most likely scenario is your going to need to use DIF.

            DIF is a product from Zinsser that is an enzyme that basically eats glue. What’s important is to give the enzymes enough time to do their job. Read the mixing instructions usually 1to 4 mixture of warm to hot water in a garden sprayer. Spray down an area that you can work on during the course of about an hour. It will take at least 15 minutes to work and you will want wet it a second time after about 7 minutes and again at 15. Test the paper at this point to see if will peal, if not give it a little longer. Remember to peal slowly and evenly so as not to rip the paper and remove as large of a sheet as possible. If you tear a section try starting from another corner or peel to an edge to get to a larger section. The most common mistake is when people get impatient and just start tearing away. Relax and let the paper and the DIF do their job. Using a paper tiger only makes this method impossible because it pre-tears the paper before you try to remove it. If the vinyl laminate is too thick for the DIF to penetrate than most likely it is strong enough to be remove without chemicals to begin with. Try to avoid this at all cost but if you must you will have to resort to using a putty knife. Try one that’s not too sharp to avoid cutting the sheetrock, or nicking the plaster depending on the type of walls you have.

            Once the laminate is removed (wet or dry), then the next phase is to remove the backing paper. Wet the area again but this time it won’t take as long because the paper will soak up the DIF and you will only need to wait 5 minutes or so. If you’re lucky you can peel the backing paper the same way as the laminate but often it is not strong enough and you are likely to need a putty or mud knife. A lager flexible mud knife often works better slowly and evenly scraping sections away but not digging into the sheetrock. Try sticking to the edges and get of as much as possible with your hands. After the backing is removed you want to get off any excess glue. Depending on how thick it is you can use your mud knife or a sponge. Wet the wall again and either scrape it down or scrub it down. Give it a final wipe down with clean warm water.

            That’s it. You successfully removed your wall paper. If you intend to paint the wall be sure to prime the wall before you start pre-paring it. I like a product from Zinsser called Guards. It is designed to create a hard sheathing over damaged sheetrock and will also hold back any glue remnant. If you paint the wall and any glue is left it will react with the paint and cause you lots of problems. The Guards takes care of that so if you damaged the walls or not use the Guards to make sure there is no glue left over.

The first thing I’ll talk about is product and tools. The 20 years I’ve been removing wallpaper one product stands out from the pack; DIF wallpaper remover concentrate liquid from Zinsser. There are other brands on the market but DIF liquid has been tried and true. The gel does not work as well because you need the chemical to penetrate the wallpaper and the gel is two thick to penetrate. One brand I attempted to use was a product called Chomp that removed more than the wallpaper so I found it too strong and appeared to eat paint along with the paper.

Basically these products are enzymes that eat wallpaper glue. Using a garden sprayer and mixing the DIF with warm water you spray an area allowing it to soak trough the paper and give the enzymes enough time to work on the glue. The warm water activates the enzymes to life but too hot will kill them.
So you went to the paint store and the guy behind the counter gives you a bottle of DIF and a tool called a paper tiger. Keep your receipt because the paper tiger can go right back to the store. A paper tiger is a device that is skimmed across the surface of the paper providing equally perforated tears to the paper. The idea is if the paper has little tears in it the chemical will penetrate better and the wall paper will be removed easier. Unfortunately it’s not so simple.

The best way to remove wallpaper is in as big of sheets as possible. Starting from the top or bottom corner slowly and evenly pull at the corner providing equal pressure to both edges and slowing rocking the paper back and forth removing it without tearing it. The bigger the piece of wallpaper removed the better. Using a paper tiger not only makes this method impossible because you already torn the paper. It also can often leave little perforations in the walls (if set too deep) that will need to be filled if the wall is to be painted.

The best tool for removing wall paper is your hands. Did I say your hands? You bet.

One of the biggest mistakes when removing wallpaper is to resort to a razor knife or sharp putty knife that only nicks and tears up the wall making for lots of extra mud work later. Sometime the laminate of the wall paper can be removed without using chemicals leaving behind the thin backing that can later be dampened and is much easier to remove. It’s best to try removing it dry first just to see if it is possible. If the paper can be removed dry it usually comes off in full sheets and can speed up the process dramatically. If it starts to tear during this process it is best to use the DIF. Over all you hands are the most important tool because you are going to pull the paper from the wall and your hands are more sensitive to the pressure of the paper so as not to tear it.

Other important tools are a sponge, bucket of warm water, putty knife (not too sharp), step ladder or stool, drop cloth, Zinsser Guards primer.