I was washing windows this morning when I realized Handyman Darren was not having much luck with scraping the wallpaper off the walls by himself. I picked up a scraper to help him out, then I remembered a trick I’d read about. Saturate the perforated wallpaper with the blue solvent, and stick plastic sheeting to the walls to let it soak in before it evaporates. After we tried that and switched to vinegar for the solvent, we were peeling off long, satisfying strips of wallpaper – much better. Now we need to fill the gouges from scraping, sand, prime and paint. There’s a reason I haven’t stripped the wallpaper in the year and a half we’ve lived in our house! I was going to let Darren do it all himself, but I’m paying him by the hour and it’s more fun working alongside someone than by myself anyway. There’s another room (a bigger one) that has wallpaper, but I think I’ll save that until some of the other jobs are finished.