Wallpaper Take Down

In all the years as 2 Women and a Paintbrush we’ve taken down a lot of wallpaper! It can be a challenge. Usually, the walls haven’t been properly prepped, which makes the take down difficult, but Maggie and I are always up for the challenge.


The hard thing to determine when we go on an estimate, especially if the homeowner is not the person who put up the paper, is how many layers there are and how the paper was installed. Pretty much it’s a guessing game; we never really know what we’re getting into until we start peeling.

Sure, we can guess. If the paper is peeling back, maybe we can see if there is another layer, but really we don’t get the whole gist of it until we are up to our knees in paper.

Once we peeled back the first layer we quickly discovered there was a second one. The first one came off fairly easy, but the second, oh the second, took a lot of patience.

Fortunately, there was not a lot of repair work on this wall.

We sealed it with a Zinsser clear sealer, because it locks in any leftover glue residue or paper fibers and fills in small nicks.

We left it to dry overnight, came back the next day and started painting.

The end result was amazing! When we are in the midst of the takedown it’s hard to imagine it’s going to look so fresh and clean.

Our next phase is a wonderful Moroccan stencil on the stairs in Navy Blue and White. We will be altering the steps in color (Navy with a white stencil & White with a Navy stencil) and 4 stencils. It’s sure to be amazing, so you’ll have to stay tuned!