When it comes to steaming wallpaper, slow and steady wins the race.

Removing wallpaper is seldom easy, but if chemical strippers are not doing the trick, renting a wallpaper steamer may be the answer to your stripping dilemma.

Step 1: Use plastic drop clothes to cover the floors and trim around the work area. For extra protection, secure the plastic to wooden baseboards with painter’s tape. Moisture left on woodwork may cause white spots to develop. If this happens, wipe the spots away with a rag soaked liberally with denatured alcohol.

Step 2: Score the wallpaper with a perforating tool, such as Zinsser’s Paper Tiger. Be careful not to damage the wallboard by pressing too hard, but press hard enough to perforate the paper completely. Holes will allow moisture to reach behind the wall paper and loosen the adhesive bond. The more perforations, the easier the job will be.

Step 3: Following the directions for your particular wallpaper steamer, fill the reservoir with clean water and allow the water to heat up. Typical steamers take 20 to 30 minutes to produce steam.

Step 4: Wearing gloves, long sleeves and safety goggles, hold the steam pan tight against the wall. Do not allow steam to escape from the sides of the pan. Optimum steaming times will vary depending on the wallpaper material and thickness, but should be between 15 seconds and one minute. Leaving the pan in one spot too long will damage wallboard surfaces, so be careful not to over steam.

Step 5: Once the paper beneath the steam pan has softened, slide the pan over to the next section and scrape off the moist paper using a stiff putty knife. When removing multiple layers of paper, it may be necessary to do a few layers at a time.

Step 6: Proceed along the wall, in the same manner, removing sections of moist paper a little at a time.

Step 7: When all the paper has been removed, go back over the walls with a sponge and warm water, to remove any remaining wall paper adhesive.

Step 8: Wash the walls thoroughly with a nonresidual cleaner such as TSP or Dirtex and spackle any holes you may have created while scraping.

Once the walls and spackle have dried, you are free to paint or re-wallpaper to suit your decorating fancy.