How do we remove paper strips from walls?

Question

In our office space, rather than painting the walls, we rolled strips of old movie papers (printed out on regular paper) all over the wall using water-diluted paint. We are moving and have to remove the paper strips and re-paint the walls white... we tried scraping some off and painting white on a test area but you can still see seams and bits of the paper. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Spray rhe wall with a hand pump sprayer filled to the line with warm water plus a little washing soda and washup liquid fine spray and have a coffee then respray ... this will penetrate through the layers soon reaching base ready for a renewed beginning.

Answer 2

If you can scrape enough paint off of the surface of the papers to let steam penetrate them, then you can use a steamer like you'd use to remove wallpaper. You can rent one from a tool rental place or Home Depot. This is NOT a fun job.

After the steam gets under those papers, you have to use a scraper and arduously scrape them off the wall, a little at a time. I would buy some spackling to fill in holes from over eager scraping, too. After it's all off, I would use a primer over those areas since you're bound to scrape down to the sheetrock in some areas.

Good luck. It's a major pain in the patootie, to tell you the truth!! : (

Answer 3

The problem with your installation method is that you used paint rather than wallpaper paste to apply the paper.  As you have already discovered, it's going to be nearly impossible to remove it.  My suggestion is to cover it with a layer of joint compound, or even a thin sheet of wallboard - hire someone to do it so it's done properly if you need to.  Good  luck.