When you decide to wallpaper it is best if you take off the old wallpaper. The reason for taking off the old wallpaper is because if you put new wallpaper on top of the old, it can cause air bubbles to appear and it may also not stick to the old wallpaper, which can make wallpaparer start to peel. In older properties you may find that there are a several layers of wallpaper on the wall, it can be quite time consuming and messy job to get it all off. When you start to lift the wallpaper off the wall the plaster behind may come of, there could also be cracks or holes, so you may need to re plaster the walls or touch it up with a one coat plaster.

Here are some ways of getting the wallpaper of the wall. Hot water and a sponge on wallpaper can loosen the paper so you can scrape it off. You can also get sugar soap tablets or powder form that you dilute in the right amount of hot water that can speed up the stripping of the wallpaper. Make sure that you wear gloves and goggles when you are using the wallpaper stripping solution. The wallpaper stripping solution works best if you scratch the wallpaper first so that it can soak behind the wallpaper. Only work on a small area so that the solution does not dry out to fast. Try to tidy up after yourself as you go along as it can dry out and became quite hard to pick up, also it can stick to your shoes and then you can track it around the house.