How To Decide Whether You Should Remove Wallpaper in St. Louis, MO

When you are looking at painting the interior of your home, you sometimes have to make a major decision that comes to your attention when you look at the state of your walls and you find wallpapers — specifically the wallpaper that covers the walls you want to ultimately paint.

There are people who have no issues painting right over the wallpaper on the wall and there are others that will tell you that it is better to remove the wallpaper first and then after properly preparing the wall, painting it.

With that being the case, let’s look at and consider how to decide whether you should remove wallpaper in St. Louis, MO.

Is There More Than One Layer?

Though there may appear to be only one layer of wallpaper, the only way that you will know for sure if the wallpaper on your wall is the only layer of wallpaper (short of you having been the one to put up the wallpaper in the first place) is to do a little investigative cutting.

What you’re going to want to do is to take a sharp blade of some sort, perhaps a putty smoothing tool — and to lift up the wallpaper just a bit at one of the seams and see what you will see when you lift it up — is there wall there or a second layer of wallpaper?

If it turns out that there’s more than one layer of wallpaper, it is entirely possible that it would be a much better idea to entirely remove the wallpapers as leaving them up would cause a bigger mess in the long run given the depth to the wallpaper.

If, however, it turns out that the wallpaper is the only one there, you can more easily paint over the wallpaper and it would be just about impossible to even tell that there ever had been wallpaper there, if it is done correctly.

What Condition Is The Wallpaper?

One of the most important things you should consider when deciding if you are going to paint over the wallpaper in your home or remove it prior to painting it is to see the condition of the wallpaper.

If, for example, your wallpaper is peeling in several paper and is deteriorating in other places, you will not do well for yourself by painting over that kind of wallpaper — the paint job will be entirely uneven and look fairly bad, likely leading to your having to tear it all off and repaint in the future.

Is It Easy Peel Off Wallpaper?

The first thing you should really do when you’re trying to figure out if you should paint over your wallpaper or just to remove it prior to painting is to try to gently tug on one of the corners of the wallpaper and see the reaction.

There are certain wallpapers that are designed to be removed quite easily — they were really meant to be only put up temporarily only to eventually be replaced later when the mood would strike.

The sure way to know that you have the kind of wallpaper that is easy to remove is to just try to remove it — so when you have the wallpaper edge in your hand you will start to pull downward and then you will see that it is coming off of the wall without too much effort.

If it turns out that you have such wallpaper, it is almost always better to remove the wallpaper entirely than to try to paint over such a wallpaper and then later watch in dismay if it happens that the paint and the wallpaper easily come off.

We would love the opportunity to be your go-to exterior painter in St. Louis, MO. Call us at 314-582-5272 to book a FREE estimate, and let us help you enhance the interior of your home so you can focus on other things.

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