Replacing Wallpaper?

[Jeff from Michigan]

I had a little water damage over the winter. I found the leak and repaired it pretty easily, but some of the wallpaper in the bedroom needs to be replaced. Since I need to replace some of it, and I doubt I'll find the exact same matching wallpaper, I'd like to replace it all.

Anybody have any experience with this? Do you need special wallpaper or will regular household wallpaper work? Any tips or tricks?

Thanks!

[lanwangeek]

I don't know about replacing the wallpaper with wallpaper, but I'm in the process of stripping all the wallpaper in my rig. I'm using a razor blade scrapper and 4" razor blade scrapper. After the paper is stripped, I fix any marks in the wall, sand the wall smooth and paint. I'm even replacing the molding with wallpaper wrapped around it with real molding. I personally think it looks much better painted. This allows the wife to change colors to her liking. I'm working on getting the pictures up on my web site. Anthony

[Rick Long]

You can paint right over the wall paper but use Bulls-Eye 123 Primer Sealer first. Bulls-Eye can be tinted so it can be done in one coat. I did a FAUX paint job on my class "A" and the tinting saved me a complete coat.

[Jeff from Michigan]

Good suggestions, but my existing wallpaper has bubbled due to the water intrusion. So I could just take it off and paint, but I'd really like to replace it. If I replace it, I can get away with just doing the two outside walls to match. If I stripped and painted, I'd have to do the whole bedroom. Camping season is upon us, so I need to resolve the problem quickly and wouldn't have time to strip the whole bedroom.

Maybe I'll call a RV repair place and ask them what type of wall paper I should use. Probably should have thought of that before.

[K-Star]

Based on the walls I've had in my trailers, it appeared that the paper is laminated directly onto the wood. Here is what I would do.

• use a razor blade to cut the bulging paper out all the way back to good solid paper
• fill in the removed area with spackle and sand smooth
• apply a primer/sealer designed for wallpaper to the entire wall to be papered. Let dry completely
• hang your paper directly over the existing wall. I prefer pre-glued paper, but make sure your read the instructions that come with the paper. Each type of paper has a different sit time after you wet the glue to activate it completely. I mix a batch of wallpaper glue and apply to the edges of the pre-glued paper. It seems like the glue is a bit sparse on the pre-glued stuff.

This is probably the fastest quick fix to your situation. If that didn't work, then I would scrape the old stuff off during the off season when you have more time and repeat above.

[WindRVer]

Could you juse cut away the bubles and use a wall paper border to cover the damage temporarily? That might cover it quickly and get you camping while you consider your long-term fixes....