About Ottawa's Morgan's Grant

If you are putting up wallpaper or are trying to take it down, you will know the value of sizing the wall, sealing any new drywall and buying good quality paper. In all cases, it is easier to put up, maintain and take down.

If you are selling and have wallpapered some walls in your home. Take a serious look at the paper. It may be old, faded, out of style, cracked and have open seams. The time to remove it is now, before the house goes on the market. I hope you sized the walls and did not paper on unfinished drywall. Surprise!!!! Taking down the paper may ruin your wall and cost a significant amount to repair it. Do NOT (and I mean this from personal experience) peel a bit of a corner, grab it and yank away the whole strip. Do you see drywall adhering to the back of that horrible old smoke stained grass cloth? Four days later with significant patching compound, sanding and dust, that room was finally ready to paint.

Some homeowners use wallpaper to hide a myriad of problems. While a home inspector is not about to pull the paper off the wall looking for problems and the homeowner may get away with the disguise, it will boil down to self-respect and moral standards of a seller.

The time to remove wallpaper is now, before the house goes on the market. Buyers like painted walls, often dislike the personal wallpaper choices of the Seller and are frequently suspicious about what the wallpaper is hiding. If it is a choice between two very similar homes and one is wallpapered and the other is not, the Buyer will almost always choose the latter.

Don't just paper over the cracks.

Photo credit: The Hang of Wallpapering