by Penny B

Created on: September 21, 2008   Last Updated: May 20, 2012

You may have just purchased a fixer-upper home, complete with wallpaper or wallpaper borders. Your new home is in desperate need of being brought into the 21st century. Or you might have just noticed how pass wallpaper borders have become in your present home. Maybe it's time to remove them and give your home's walls a bit of a fresh facelift.

Wallpaper borders were very popular in the 1980's and 90's. They were a simple and very inexpensive way to brighten up a room and add a splash of color. However, styles do change over the years, and whether you may still enjoy your wallpaper borders, it might be time to give them up and move onward, with the home fashions of today.

Although wallpaper borders did have the quality of adding color to a room, they also were notorious for making a room look smaller and closed in. By removing them and adding a new coat of paint, you can make the room appear much larger, brighter and more open and inviting.

They were easy enough to put up then, but just how do you go about removing them now? Well, just as easy as they were going up, they can be just as easy coming down. You can tackle the job in one of three different ways, all as simple and quick as the other. You can either purchase or rent a wallpaper steamer, use liquid wallpaper stripper, or just a bucket of steaming hot water and a sponge.

• Wallpaper Steamer 

Some may prefer this method of removing wallpaper. It's simple and clean, however it has a few drawbacks. To either rent or purchase a steamer, might add extra cost to your project that you have not budgeted for. It hardly seems worth the expense to just remove borders, unless you happen to already own one.

However, if this is the option you've chosen, it is simple and quick, with no mess. The steamer emits a burst of steam at the surface, which heats the glue in order to loosen the paper from your wall. Once the glue has been loosened, the paper should start to pull away from the wall very easily. You can then use a scraper or wide putty knife to remove the last remaining traces of paper and glue.

Sponge off the area with warm soapy water to be sure that the glue has been completely removed.

• Liquid Wallpaper Stripper 

This is a product that is specifically designed to strip wallpaper. You can purchase wallpaper stripper from any hardware or home improvement store. It is suggested that you use a garden sprayer, however, for such a small project as a border, you could possibly use either a small

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