James M. Tiner: Hi! I'm Jim Tiner, Professional Paper Hanger. We're talking about how to hang wallpaper.

Now, we're in the preparation part of the installation, and part of the preparation maybe removing wallpaper. Now, there is many different kinds of paper. They all come off differently. You can usually determine what you have by trying to find a loose corner or a seam. Now if it comes off all in one piece, that's fine, if it comes off in a little piece, that's also okay. But when it comes off in a piece like this where the backing of the paper is still on, then it presents a different problem.

As you can see it all comes off, the face comes off, great. What I do with the face since it's a vinyl, is I'll lay it down, right on top of my drop cloth or right on top of my old sheets or towels, whatever you can use to absorb that excess water. Continue to take off, the face of this paper, until all the face of the vinyl is gone. As you can see, some of it's going to stay on. What are we going to do when it does this?

Well, there's a lot of products out there that have that are wallpaper removers. They are actually enzymes that attack the paste, however I never use that product, simply because the enzymes don't know the difference between the old paste and the new paste. So what I'm recommending is dish-washing liquid. If you can, you get yourself a garden sprayer. You fill it with lukewarm water, and use two or three ounces of dish-washing liquid in the water. It's nontoxic, it doesn't smell, it won't hurt anything.

However, what it does, it has a property in it that penetrates and softens the paste. So we filled up our sprayer, pump it up until you get your pressure, and spray. Spray it and keep it wet, depending on how hard it is to get down, 20 minutes. As you can see there is a lot of water overspray, but it's only water in dish-washing liquid, there is nothing that will hurt your floor or hurt your rug.

So you keep spraying, and only do a section at a time. You only do a section, so you don't have to go back and redo it, and it dries out, and you redo it and it dries out. Once it's soaked and you're satisfied that it's soaked enough, grab a corner -- now it all doesn't come down this easily, but it can, if you're patient, you need to be patient. If you need to use a scraper, you use it gently, because the walls are wet, they're soft and they damage easily. So, you only want to scrape, you need to scrape as gently as you can. Don't gouge your wall, it will only mean more preparation. Just let the pieces fall, I'll pull them down.

Now, this wall is still soft, and it has paste on it. Now the paste that's on it, isn't compatible with the new wallcovering. Give it a light spray, keep that paste soft, a clean sponge, and wash. Most of it, once it's wet, will come off very easy, but make sure you get it well and soft. This is the best time to do it, as you're stripping. If you feel glue on there, wait, go back and just do a little more washing, you're not going to get all the glue off. You may get 90% of it off, but you most likely won't get every bit of it off. But you want to get off as much as you can, and continue your strip. After it's stripped, leave it alone for a day, and then come back and do your preparation, like we talked about in our other clip.

Scraping and sanding, this is the best time to do it after it's dry, usually 24 hours later. This will give you time to go over what you need to be doing, assemble your tools and the products you'll need to go on to the next step.