Old fragile wallpaper that is glued tightly to old walls is rather easy to clean if you would like to save it during your next remodeling project. To clean old wallpaper properly, it just takes time and the right mindset.
Back in the days when the majority did not live next door to a grocery store, cleaning projects were done with common items that were found around the home. Cleaning old wallpaper was a job that was done in cities; the chore of cleaning old wallpaper was also done out on the farm, at remote mining camps that were low on water, and at all other places imaginable where a little decoration was added to make the homestead feel nicer.
Old wallpaper is simply a thin sheet of paper, printed with a pretty pattern that households glued firmly onto less decorative walls. Be aware that the wallpaper printing process did not always involve inks that are waterproof. It’s not wise to grab a wet cleaning rag and start scrubbing away if you are serious about saving your antique wallpaper.
The job of cleaning wallpaper was often done in olden days with items from around the house, while the cleaning person had the mind-set that the wallpaper was an irreplaceable and precious item to be handled with care. Cleaning old wallpaper requires handling it with care. This is a fragile old paper product. Scrubbing will hurt the paper.
Test colors: Before starting to clean old wallpaper, find a place that does not show and test your colors with a water-damp Q-tip to see if your paper has any colors that will run.
Hold a damp (not wet) Q-tip against each color in the pattern for 5-seconds, then look to see if you have any color transferring. Stop and get a professional if your colors come off.
Your old wallpaper has probably been on the walls for years; there are exceptions to this rule, but normally old wallpaper was stored for us to enjoy by gluing it to the walls. Take a peek around your old home, and try to decide what the wallpaper has been exposed to over the years: Wood smoke? Coal heat? Cigarettes? Dust from the field of corn across the street? Knowing what might be on the wallpaper will help you to clean it.
Shop-Vac walls: To get started on cleaning old wallpaper, start in your smallest room, and remove all furniture. Find a pad of Post-It type of document stickers that can not stick to paper and get out your Shop-Vac.
Take the cleaning attachments off of your Shop-Vac and clean every inch of your paper slowly, working with just your open Shop-Vac hose. Do not try to scrub with the hard hose, instead hold the hose at a slight angle like a pencil and examine your walls closely as you clean.
Start in a corner and slowly go up the wall in stripes. Go in the same direction as of the roll of wallpaper did went it was put onto the wall. Borders will go sideways, and wallpaper up and down. Every time that you see a flaw in your wallpaper or a problematic looking mark on your wallpaper, mark it with a Post-It sticker and keep going.
When you are done with this step, you will have 4 pre-cleaned walls with a bunch of Post-Its flapping in time to your portable room-fan blades.
Clean walls: Did you know that Play-Doh was originally created as wallpaper cleaner? How this probably happened is that some bright person noticed Grandma cleaning her walls one day, and decided to cash-in on the concept. The old-timers made their daily bread, and every kitchen had the ingredients to make a very still dry bread-dough compound to roll over their wallpaper to make it cleaner.
Today, there’s no need to mix-up your own bread dough to clean your fragile old wallpaper with; squish-bread works just fine. Get a loaf of the cheapest white bread available at your grocery store. This bread will squish into a nice moist ball to work with after you take the crusts off.
Start squishing 2 or 3 pieces of bread (without crusts) into a ball in with your hands. Your ball will be ready to use when the bread sticks together into a lightly moist ball. Start in a corner and rub this ball up the wall in the same type of stripes that you did with your Shop-Vac. When your ball is dirty, make a new ball.
Squish-bread balls pick up dirt, oily wood smoke, oils and tars from smoking, and most oil based fingerprints. The squish-bread balls do not remove all smells embedded into the fibers of the paper, or water damaged spots. The balls are only cleaning the uppermost level of the wallpaper.
As you get to your Post-It stickers indicating a problem area, try the ball. If it works remove your Post-It so that you stay current on where your problem areas are. As I am working with my squish-bread balls, I like to keep using the Shop-Vac over the space that I’ve just squish-ball cleaned to remove all residue; but I’ve really never actually seen any residue beyond the few crumbs that fall off as your ball is getting dirty.
Stand back when you are done and admire the walls for a day. This will allow you the time to see the walls in a few different lightings to determine if you need to go over any places with more squish-ball work to get rid of stripes that you missed, or areas that didn’t come completely clean while you had a ball getting too dirty.
Remaining Problems: After you are done pre-cleaning the walls, identifying your problems and squish-balling the top-dirt off of the wallpaper, you might be left with a few Post-It locations of problems to work on. Here are some ideas for those areas.
Faded patterns are taken care of with tube-style watercolor paints. You mix an exact color to match your wall and apply it in the same strokes as the original artist did. Sometimes you have to get creative and work with a toothpick, or a tiny piece of cotton, or an item that will make the same brush-stroke marks as the original paper. Practice on a piece of paper until you get the stroke looking right before painting on your wall.
Paint Splatter: Paint splatter is removed with the tiny point of a razor blade. With the point of the blade, engrave lines across the center of the dot that cuts it into four pieces. From the thickest part in the center, work outward slowly chipping the tiny paint dot away.
Gouges: For small gouges, covering the tiny hole with a new piece of paper of similar texture to your wallpaper works; let glue dry, and then paint your design to match the pattern. Larger gouges need to be filled in with spackle and made smooth before putting on a piece of paper and adding the pattern.
Smell: This is a toughie because the smell is not on the top layer of your wallpaper after you have used your squish-ball on it, and you really do not want to try getting your paper wet. The squish-ball should have removed your major problem, but if a smell is still lingering you will want to talk to your dry cleaning specialist for ideas out of his catalog to work with. There is dry cleaning sponged on type of products available. Do not use anything wet, or you chance ruining your antique paper product.
If you are still desperate for a smell removal idea, you may want to try putting some fabric smell remover behind your baseboards, radiators, and applying it with a Q-Tip to your corner and ceiling lines where a little water might not show as much.
Greasy Oily Spots: Some (not all) stubborn spots will come off of your old wallpaper in the same way that you remove a white water spot ring from a wood table. Cover your wallpaper with a thin towel, or a few paper towels. Iron on low heat until the moisture evaporates, or transfers onto your towel. This will also get some crayon marks off after you have scraped what you can of the wax off with a razor blade or fingernail first.
