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I love our RV, but it didn’t always feel like “ours”. I sometimes forget that once upon a time it had floral bordered wallpaper in the kitchen and bathroom.
Yeah, definitely not my kinda style.
One question we get emailed quite often is how to remove the outdated wallpaper border, and the good news is it’s much easier than you may think.
However, before you start tearing at the walls of your RV you should know there’s a MAJOR difference between the wallpaper texture all of the walls have, and the bordered wallpaper added on top of that.
The interior walls of your motorhome are likely made of some sort of luan plywood that has a wallpaper texture adhered to them which is NOT removable, at least as far as I know. We just painted over ours.
This seems to be the case in most RV’s and campers, but I’ve seen some with wallpapered accent walls, so I would just look closely before attempting to pry it off.
How to remove the outdated wallpaper border in your RV
Here are the materials I used to remove the wallpaper border from our RV, but I’ll list some alternative options at the bottom of this post.
- Flathead Screw Driver or Paint Scraper
- Goo Gone (You could also use Krud Kutter, but NOT Goof Off!)
- Sponge or Rag
If you have any outlets where your border is, be sure to remove the covers first!
Eric and I planned to add a textured backsplash to our kitchen so we technically didn’t need to remove the wallpaper border in the first place. However, one day while working on another kitchen project I became curious about the border. Besides, it was an eyesore and I wanted to see what our kitchen would look like without it there.
I grabbed a nearby flathead screwdriver and starting at one edge of the wall I tried to lift the wallpaper.
Surprisingly it lifted off fairly easily and before I knew it I was unrolling the entire border in the kitchen. If you’re finding your wallpaper a bit more difficult to remove you can use a blowdryer to help loosen up the adhesive.
It took me less than 5 minutes.
I think Eric had run inside to grab something and when he came back the border was off.
I can’t remember if I was supposed to be doing something else, but I get sidetracked like that sometimes, woops.
While the border was super easy for us to remove, the sticky residue it left behind wasn’t so nice.
I grabbed some Goo Gone and a sponge and started wiping it down. I had to do this a few times and it worked pretty well. I later ended up wiping the wall down with some TSP as well.
In case you missed it, you can see our renovated tiny kitchen over on this post. Again, we didn’t actually need to remove the wallpaper in our kitchen, but at least it gave me some experience, haha.
Here’s a close up of the (painted) wood planked backsplash we installed later on:
Additional Options to Removing the RV Wallpaper Border Residue:
It seems that not everyone is so lucky when it comes to removing the wallpaper in their RV, so I wanted to share some additional options you may want to try.
Orange or Lemon Essential Oil
Some people swear by lemon, orange, or any other citrus essential oil for removing the residue. Bonus, it smells good! I wish I would have tried this out. If you do, definitely let me know how it goes!
Citrus Magic
I’ve heard that using Citrus Magic Air Freshener (not sure if the scent matters) can help remove the sticky residue.
Blowdryer or Portable Steamer:
If you’re having trouble lifting up the wallpaper border you can use a blowdryer or portable steamer to help loosen up the adhesive.
Spray Bottle with warm water and fabric softener mixed together:
If you’re having trouble removing the sticky residue left behind you can mix fabric softener with warm water into a spray bottle, spray the area, wait a few minutes and then wipe it off with a sponge or rag. Bonus: it will make your RV smell nice too.
Alcohol:
After using Goo Gone you can wipe the area down with Alcohol.
WD40:
This is another option that may help you remove the sticky residue.
Sandpaper:
You can try using sandpaper to smooth out the adhesive if the other options still don’t work
TSP:
You can wipe your walls down with TSP, which is extra helpful if you plan to paint the wall afterward anyway.
I hope you found this post useful, did you remove the outdated wallpaper border in your RV and if yes, do you have any tips to share, we would love to hear about them in the comments below!
HI Katie! I love this, and it’s motivated me to maybe remove our border in our rv too. The only thing is I don’t know how long we will have the rv but it still might be a good project to spiff it up a bit. The difference in your rv is tremendous, and the planks were a great idea!
So glad to have found you today!
xxx
Doreen
Thanks Doreen! We don’t know how long we’ll have our RV, but figured we should go ahead and make it ours, while it is. There’s always the concern of whether it will make it easier or more difficult to sell later on, but we enjoy it so much more now 🙂
Soon I’m gonna be removing some wallpaper borders and painting some walls in our motorhome, so your posts were super helpful. Thanks for all the excellent tips. I am itching to get started!
Hi Emily, yay have fun! Our border removed pretty easily, but I’d love to hear any tips you may learn along the way 🙂
This is great! I thought I was stuck with what I had. I believe I will be painting and removing as well!
Yay! I think you’ll be amazed at how much it can transform the space!
i really wan to remove the flowered border in our rv. it’s very out dated and not my style. it seems to be very stuck on the wall so i will be trying the blow dryer and hope it works . there is a roll of wallpaper that is calling my name for our bedroom to make it a more farmhouse look
Yay, let us know how it turns out!
I’m very interested in removing the border on our park model, and then painting. Any tips on what paint to use?
Cleaning the walls first (we used TSP) and then using a good gripper primer is key. I have a post that goes into more detail below:
https://mountainmodernlife.com/painting-the-walls-of-your-rv/
Hope that helps!
Katie
I have tried all your tips on removing the adhesive. But it is still tricky. What else can I do
Hey Sue! Sorry but I just saw your comment and since it’s been a couple months I was wondering if you were able to get it removed?
Katie
We are just now finishing a whole 5th wheel redo….we did everything including the ceilings to the floors, my countertops came out fantastic…took us 14 months to do it right..but it looks like home!! Leaving for Michigan on Wednesday…we are so excited…
Yay, that’s awesome Wanda and congrats! If you have a link to photos, we’d love to check it out!
After you remove the border how difficult is it to paint over the remaining wall paper? We’re thinking about buying a fixer upper of a camper and I can’t stand the floral.
Painting over the textured walls isn’t necessarily difficult… it can just be time consuming. We have a post that goes into more detail on how we painted the walls of the RV, which you can find below. I hope it helps but let me know if you have any other questions!
https://mountainmodernlife.com/painting-the-walls-of-your-rv/
Katie
I have been told from several blogs and at our local RV store that you should NOT use a blow dryer as it will loosen the glue holding the wallpaper onto the wall. It won’t just loosen the glue on the border! I am in the middle of trying to figure how to remover our 5th wheel borders!
Hmmmm… we haven’t heard of that before and I would think it would take a lot of heat (and a lot more time) to loosen up the actual wallpaper on the luan plywood, but maybe not. During our research we found a lot of people that did it this way without damage which is why we mention it as an option, along with using a portable steamer. I’m wondering what they think about using a blow dryer on the lower setting? To be honest, we didn’t need to use a blowdryer or any type of heat because ours came off pretty easy (thankfully!). In the end, it’s really just about doing what you’re comfortable with, so let us know if you find a different way that works!
We are in process of painting our fifth wheel. The border just will not come off, even using a heat gun!! So we have improvised and have purchased a paintable embossed wallpaper border that we will glue over top the 10 ft total wallpaper border, and then plan to paint it all the same color. hopefully it almost disappears.
That’s terrible news Wende, I’m sorry to hear that border won’t come off! Hopefully you’re right and the embossed wallpaper border will cover it, make sure to let us know how it works. It may be able to help someone else if their border won’t come off either 🙂
I’m ddling exactly the same thing, installing a backsplash and don’t need to remove the border, but rather experimenting there to see what removes that sticky residue. My border peels off for the most part in one piece, but it’s like wallpaper border on a duct tape foundation. I’ve tried several things to remove that leftover adhesive and it seems like anything that removes it also strips the color from the ‘wallpaper.’ I really want those borders gone but not as much as I don’t want to paint all the walls!
Hi Shannon,
I’ve also heard that using lemon or orange essential oil can help, or even Citrus Magic Air Freshener. Let me know if any of these work for you or if you find a different solution!
Katie
oH MY GOSH! i’ve been sweating over wallpaper borders for days and after reading this i don’t need to purchase anything. I peeled off the nasty trim and put up a few wall decals and it’s done. Haven’t tackled the residue yet, but there is a lot of good information here so I’m sure it won’t be a problem. thanks so much!
Susan
I’m in the process of taking off the border right now but instead of a sticky residue left it is more like a seran wrap hard substance like half the border (the back side of it) is still on the wall. Any suggestions? The fabric softener idea isn’t touching it (only smells good) 🙂 Jodine
I removed the border strip pretty easily on our travel trailer. Unfortunately did not see this post ahead of time and got Goof off – do not use goof off it will strip any color off you wall paper. i’m going to try the pure citrus air FRESHENER as i’ve read a couple places it works well.
Thanks for the tips! Krud Kutter really helps
https://cleanhomeguide.com/krud-kutter-reviews/