Cleaning wallpaper

[scorecard]

Our house has two areas in bedrooms (both about 50 cm by 50 cm) where internal water leakage has causes some mould growth on the wallpaper.

Luckily it was all noticed quickly and the pipes / joints etc., repaired quickly from within the bathrooms and tiles etc., replaced professionallly.

Can any CM members please offer and good ideas:

1, About cleaning the wallpaper, or

2. Good quality wallpaper stockists in CM who can do professional cleaning.

3. Good quality wallpaper stockists in CM who can provide new wallpaper and install it. (The wallpaper is a very simple light cream colour and I'm guessing would be readily available. I realize that we will have to buy a full roll and perhaps also pay for installing a full roll.)

Thanks.

[bangmai]

wall-paper is as outdated as rotary dial phones. Remove it with vinegar and water....scrape (if it is concrete), then paint.

[northernjohn]

wall-paper is as outdated as rotary dial phones. Remove it with vinegar and water....scrape (if it is concrete), then paint.

It is also notorious for mold.

[Mousehound]

You can clean with sugar soap. A roll is usually colour coded to a batch so even if you get the same print and colour it will most likely be a different shade. Paper also fades with time. You will most likely need to do at least a complete wall panel. Easy to do. Look it up on YouTube.

[scorecard]

You can clean with sugar soap. A roll is usually colour coded to a batch so even if you get the same print and colour it will most likely be a different shade. Paper also fades with time. You will most likely need to do at least a complete wall panel. Easy to do. Look it up on YouTube.

Thanks. As a first step I'd like to try cleaning the wallpaper. Any suggestions where to buy sugar soap in CM? Thanks.

[NancyL]

Look for trisodium phosphate in stores that sell supplies for painting. It's used to wash down walls to remove grease and grime prior to painting. (it may be too harsh for the wallpaper, however.)

Personally, I'm with bangmai on this one. Wallpaper is outdated and doesn't make much sense in this climate. The only reason I can see to use wallpaper is if the wall surface is uneven and bad-looking, in which case it might be better to try to correct that problem.

(Reminds me of my mother's reaction when Hubby and I proudly showed off our do-it-yourself wallpapering efforts in our home in the 1970s back when wallpaper was chic. She said "but you had perfectly good walls. Why did you cover them with paper?" She came from a depression-era mind-set when wallpaper was used to hide bad-looking plaster.)

[scorecard]

Look for trisodium phosphate in stores that sell supplies for painting. It's used to wash down walls to remove grease and grime prior to painting. (it may be too harsh for the wallpaper, however.)

Personally, I'm with bangmai on this one. Wallpaper is outdated and doesn't make much sense in this climate. The only reason I can see to use wallpaper is if the wall surface is uneven and bad-looking, in which case it might be better to try to correct that problem.

(Reminds me of my mother's reaction when Hubby and I proudly showed off our do-it-yourself wallpapering efforts in our home in the 1970s back when wallpaper was chic. She said "but you had perfectly good walls. Why did you cover them with paper?" She came from a depression-era mind-set when wallpaper was used to hide bad-looking plaster.)

Well thanks but here's the facts:

It's a two year old house which I bought for my Thai son in a new moo baan, at the time half of the houses had been completed, here in Chiang Mai.

Better quality construction, everything finished well, also meaning a bit more expensive, all walls are initially polished concrete and very well done.

Customers had the option of painted very smooth polished concrete or wallpaper with several choices, all very simple.

This is not a situation of applying wallpaper to cover poor construction or whatever.

My son and his Thai wife wanted wallpaper, they looked at a number of finished houses then selected very pale cream very slightly textured wallpaper. It's well installed and very unobtrusive.

But there has been a slight internal water problem which has caused two areas of slight mold.

I'm well aware of the western ups and downs of the popularity of wallpaper but this is Thailand and I totally respect my son's wishes.

[NancyL]

Yes, but you've discovered one of the big downsides to wallpaper. It's prone to mold and in our climate, we have more mold problems than in drier climates and in climates where houses have to be built tighter because of the need to heat them.

Actually, in Michigan we had problems with mold in the wallpaper in the bathrooms and had to replace it in the shower areas every couple years. And this was with using exhaust fans and wiping down the shower stall after every shower in an effort to keep the moisture in the shower room as low as possible. We simply bought extra wallpaper at the time we ordered for the initial installation. And since Hubby and I were proficient wallpaper hangers (we had two homes where every vertical surface and a few horizontal ones were covered with do-it-yourself wallpaper), it wasn't a big task to remove wallpaper in a shower room above the tile and replace it. The biggest hassle was being sure all the mold was killed and the surface dried out before reinstalling fresh wallpaper.