This week I’m coming at you with some more tips to make your DIY projects easier! My mom is a teacher and this summer she has so many projects around the house she wants to complete. She hasn’t even been done school for a week yet and she’s already shared with me her tip to get remove the wallpaper border in her laundry room.

The last time the laundry room was painted, I was in high school. That was over 10 years ago! My parents’ house was all stark white and I was trying to convince them to add more color to their walls. My mom had this wallpaper border she had bought but never hung. I remember feeling so important choosing the colors for the walls and painting the laundry room. Since then, the kitchen, dining room, living room, bedrooms and bath have all been painted; some dark, some light. Most of the rooms were painted over 10 years ago, back when I was still in high school. Now, my parents are looking to brighten things up and create a more cohesive color palette.

The first thing my mother did was try and remove as much of the wallpaper she could by hand easily. Below you can see her pulling off a good chunk of wallpaper. Behind you can see there’s still quite a bit of gunk on the wall.

Below is another picture of some wallpaper that has been removed. You can see she couldn’t get the entire first layer off. On the wall you can more easily see the adhesive that’s left over. The very white line showing through the adhesive near the bottom is actually the line we created from the painter’s tape when we originally painted the two tone walls.

The next thing mom did was grab a spray bottle and filled the bottle 1/3 full with vinegar. She then filled the rest of the spray bottle with boiling water. It doesn’t matter what size spray bottle you use as long as it’s 1 part vinegar and 2 parts boiling water. She shook the bottle to mix the ingredients and then started saturating the remnants of wallpaper. Below you can see her using a putty knife to easily scrape off the remaining wet wallpaper.

Before you repaint or wallpaper anything, you really do need to make sure your walls are prepped properly. My mother was lucky and only had to remove a border. If you have a room full of wallpaper, it will definitely be more time consuming, but you don’t want to cut corners. You should never paint or wallpaper over existing wallpaper. After the wallpaper is removed you’ll want to wash the walls and then fill in any holes in the drywall with either spackle or drywall compound. Then you will be all set to tape and paint or hang your new wallpaper!