How to Remove Wallpaper without Hiring a Steamer

If you have some wallpaper you want to get rid off, but are put off by the whole process of hiring a steamer to remove it, then follow my simple way to remove wallpaper just with water. Yep water is all you need to get rid of your wallpaper. It’s so easy. Let me show you.

How to Remove Wallpaper Without a Hiring a Steamer

This quick video will show you how easy it is to remove wallpaper without having to hire a steamer.

It’s as simple as:

Spray the wallpaper with water until it is saturated
Wait for the water to loosen and dissolve the wallpaper glue
Simply peel the wallpaper of the wall
Finish off by washing the wall down to remove all last traces of glue.

Why I Removed the Wallpaper

This is my downstairs living room. It’s a room I don’t usually share because the wallpaper is so bad.
As you can see the wallpaper is damaged and doesn’t look good. There is water damage, air bubbles and the paper has faded. Grasscloth wallpaper also suffers from seam lines which don’t look good after a while.

After spraying with water, I was able to remove the wallpaper quickly and easily without having to hire a wallpaper steamer.

Once the wallpaper was removed, I washed the wall down with a sugar soap solution to remove all last traces of wallpaper glue. The wall is now ready to paint or re-wallpaper.

To see what this wall looks like now read Coastal Canvas Wall Art.

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Hi Kyle. That looks super simple. Would that work on really old wallpaper? As in wallpaper applied in the 1950’s? We were looking at a weatherboard cottage and realised the cost would be too high to take out all the internal walls as we couldn’t sand off the old glue once the wallpaper was removed….the walls are asbestos. If it came off easily and left a smooth finish one could potentially just paint rather than gutting it…

Hi Jo, yes it would probably work with old wallpaper but if the walls are asbestos I would get specialist advice. In our old house in London, they just painted over the top of the wallpaper and it looked fine. Just make sure the wallpaper is not lifting i.e.: glue the edges down before you paint.