Vinyl wall decals are such a great tool for home decor, but they can also be a bit challenging to take down when you’re done with them. Here’s how to remove vinyl wall decals easily!
If you follow along with me on Instagram Stories, then you may have seen that I’ve been working on giving Jack’s room a little update recently. Nothing big, just some new paint, a new bed, new bedding, and a few little Star Wars themed decor items because that’s what he’s in to these days. 🙂 I had used a number of vinyl wall decals when I put together his nursery 5-and-a-half years ago and I really loved the fun effect of the baseballs all over his room and the one big baseball player silhouette. It was time for them to go though. I was under the impression that they would peel away without any issue whatsoever, but I was a little wrong about that. I had a lot of wall decals to work through, so here’s what I learned about how to remove vinyl wall decals easily!
How NOT to Remove Vinyl Wall Decals
The first thing that I did was to just take a little scraper, lift one corner of the vinyl and start peeling. I learned that if you do this, you’ll either end up spending forever because the vinyl will break apart and come off in tiny pieces, or you’ll end up ripping the top layer of your drywall off and you’ll have to repair it and repaint.
Luckily, we have all the drywall repair supplies ready to go in our basement at all times, but this would be a huge inconvenience for anyone who had to run out to the hardware store to buy all of the supplies before they could continue with their project.
So here’s what to do instead!
How to Remove Vinyl Wall Decals Easily
Do you remember a little while ago when I learned how to remove those break-apart price stickers all in one piece? I decided to try the same technique.
So I grabbed my hair dryer, turned it on to the lowest setting, and moved it back and forth over a small section of vinyl for about one minute.
It worked!
The heat actually helps with two different issues with removing the vinyl wall decals. First of all, the heats helps to loosen the bond of the adhesive that holds the vinyl to the wall. Secondly, it actually makes the vinyl itself stretchy rather than brittle, so the vinyl is able to stretch and allow itself to be peeled off the wall, rather than breaking off in tiny pieces when you try to pull at it.
Here am I heating the vinyl. I worked in about 6-inch sections and peeled each section up after I had warmed it a bit.
I just used a screwdriver as my “scraper” to get started.
This is what happens when you try to pull at a section that isn’t warmed enough. It just breaks or tears right off.
I had that happen to me a few times because I got a little too excited and peeled a bit too much, but I still got this whole giant wall decal removed in just a few minutes. And with very little frustration, which is key in a project like this. 🙂
If you need to remove vinyl wall decals at any point in the future, now you know how!
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Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.