Dining Room Wallpaper Removal: My Dry-Strip + Wet-Strip Method
The wallpaper in our dining room is finally gone. What a relief—and a small celebration.
There’s something so satisfying about smooth, ready-to-paint walls. The trim, however, is another story—still painted a bright blue that will need attention.
Over the years I’ve tried several approaches to wallpaper removal so I can compare them: spraying boiling water, using a steamer, and a warm Dr. Bronner’s solution with a wet rag. This time I tried a professional painter’s recommendation: start by dry stripping (peeling the paper by hand) and then follow up with a wet stripping to remove the backing layer.
Much of the patterned top layer came off in large sheets, which felt encouraging. There were also thinner strips and stubborn corners that required extra passes. Overall, the dry-stripping approach wasn’t dramatically faster than spraying and waiting for the paper to soak, but it eliminated the waiting step and felt a bit quicker in practice—especially with older wallpaper that was already loosening at the seams.
Dry stripping mostly removed the glossy patterned layer. The white underlayer—the paper-backed glue film—remained in many places. I continued around the room over several days, removing the top print first and dealing with the backing afterward.
This is the backing layer I mentioned. To remove it I used a simple wet-sponge technique.
I dunked a large sponge in warm water and wiped the walls, concentrating where the backing was still clinging. The water soaked in, the paper bubbled and loosened, and that made it possible to peel the backing off.
Removing the backing was the slower part. It mostly came off in narrow strips, so each wall took about an hour and a half to free from the gluey film.
One tricky spot was where the wallpaper was tucked behind the built-in corner cabinets. Those built-ins had been installed after the paper, so the wallpaper was pinned behind the trim. To deal with that I carefully scored along the edge with an X-Acto knife, running the blade right against the trim until I was sure I’d cut through the paper completely.
Then I used tweezers to pull the trimmed strips free for a neat finish along each side of the built-ins.
The most stubborn areas were inside the two built-in bookcases. The wallpaper was glued directly to unprimed plywood with a permanent adhesive, making removal extremely difficult. After spending roughly two hours on a single cubby and getting an uneven result, we decided to stop trying to remove it completely.
We concluded that it would be better to leave the existing paper in place and either paint, re-wallpaper, or adhere fabric directly over it. Trying to strip it to bare wood made the surface rougher, whereas leaving it gives a smoother base for refinishing.
So while there’s still wallpaper inside the built-ins, the main walls are fully cleared and ready for paint—trim and all.
To prepare walls for painting after removing wallpaper, I’ve had good results simply spraying them with a warm vinegar-and-water solution and scrubbing with the textured side of a sponge to remove residual glue. Some people recommend specialty primers to block adhesive, but the vinegar treatment has removed glue well enough in our experience and saves the extra cost and step of priming in many areas.
And because I like to track progress, here’s how my pre-baby reno checklist is shaping up:
- de-blue-trim-ify the dining room
de-wallpaper the dining roomfinish Project No More Graph Paper in the kitchen- strip the bold blue master bathroom wallpaper
rip up the old carpet runner on the stairs- paint the blue trim in the office
Slowly but surely. We still have another room upstairs with wallpaper to tackle—so I’m open to suggestions on final methods. So far the steamer has felt fastest and easiest, though every approach we tried used inexpensive supplies we already had on hand (or a borrowed steamer). Has anyone successfully removed wallpaper that was glued to plywood? It’s infuriating but oddly memorable.
Psst—John is over on Young House Life writing about the half marathon he ran this weekend for anyone who asked for that post.