How To Remove Woodchip Wallpaper

Woodchip wallpaper was a popular choice in the 80’s and can be found in lots of homes across the country. Today, it isn’t everyone’s favourite decor staple and many choose to remove it and make way for more contemporary designs.

Nowadays, all our Graham & Brown wallpapers use paste the wall technology, so you will never have to worry about time consuming removal again! See our video on how easy it is to remove our wallpapers.

Unfortunately, removing woodchip wallpaper is a time-consuming task. Although you can speed up the process using a wallpaper steamer, older walls often need a delicate touch. That’s why we recommend being safe rather than sorry and taking a more manual approach.

This blog will take you through how to remove woodchip wallpaper in the best way, causing minimal damage to the walls beneath and leaving you with a clean slate.

1Prepare the area

Removing woodchip wallpaper can become messy quite quickly. Protect the space by either removing all furniture or else moving it to the centre of the room where it is out of the way. You should also lay down a protective floor covering, especially if you have carpets. Tape the covering to the skirting board to make absolutely sure nothing gets onto the floor.

Once you’ve finished removing the wallpaper you can simply roll the floor covering up and dispose of it.

2Perforate the woodchip wallpaper

Woodchip wallpaper needs to be thoroughly soaked before it can be removed. To achieve this, liquid needs to penetrate the paper and reach the adhesive on the other side, which is then broken down.

Use a craft knife, or a spiked roller if you have one, to score the wallpaper. Remember that the more scoring you do, the easier it is for liquid to soak into the paper, so don’t skip this step.

3Create your removal solution

Making a woodchip wallpaper removal solution is very simple. Just combine warm water (we suggest pouring into a bucket straight from the shower) with washing up liquid. The detergent stops the water from sliding down the wall’s surface so quickly, giving it more time to work on the wallpaper.

4Soak the wallpaper

The key to removing woodchip wallpaper is to make sure it stays wet throughout the process. Trying to remove it while it is still dry is near impossible and incredibly time-consuming.

The most effective way to soak the wallpaper is by applying your removal solution with a garden sprayer. If you don’t have access to one, or would rather not get one, you can also use a paint roller or paint brush. Don’t be afraid to really go to town - the aim is to turn the wallpaper back into mush.

5Begin scraping the wallpaper

Once your wallpaper is thoroughly soaked, you can begin scraping it with your wall scraper. Be aware that, once off the wall, the paper will dry and stick to whatever surface it lands on. For this reason, try to keep everything contained to your protective floor covering.

If the wall dries while you are still scraping, simply add more water and wait for it to soak in before continuing. You may need to repeat this process several times before all of the paper is removed.