Tiling a wallpapered kitchen wall

crayola

Hi all. Basic one I know but I'm (still) very new to this DIY business.

The kitchen in our new home is entirely wallpapered. I find this a bit odd and would like to vary things a bit and prevent dirty marks by adding some tiling around the sink and worktop area.

Will I first have to remove the wallpaper that is there at the moment? I'm thinking that tiling over wallpaper sounds like a big no-no, but I'm equally nervous about cutting and ripping off the paper underneath, as I'm sure I'll slip up and rip more than I want to. Also I imagine it would be tricky to get a perfectly level tear line all around the room.

My only bright idea is removing a section that's slightly smaller than the total area I plan to tile (to prevent any bare patches appearing above the tiles) but I'm really not all that keen on ripping up the wallpaper at all.

Thoughts?? :think:

Ebe_Scrooge

You cannot tile onto paper - it will probably look OK for a couple of days, but the weight of the tiles will pull the paper off and the whole lot will come crashing down.

If you need to cut the paper, I would suggest making cuts with a very sharp Stanley knife ( you will probably need to change the blade quite often, as paper dulls blades like nothing else ! ) As long as the blade is very sharp, you should be able to make a neat cut and then carefully strip off the part you want to. Make sure you cut right through all of the paper ( it's quite possible there may be more than one layer, depending on how it's been done before ).

Hope this helps.

wallbash

My only bright idea is removing a section that's slightly smaller than the total area I plan to tile (to prevent any bare patches appearing above the tiles)

Not the professional way at all , but as you are beginner at DIY I personally think thats a great idea.
I would hope that the top row of tiles cover only a small amount of paper .

keystone

wallbash wrote: »

Not the professional way at all , but as you are beginner at DIY I personally think thats a great idea.
I would hope that the top row of tiles cover only a small amount of paper .

I would hope that the top row of tiles cover NO paper.

Cheers

wallbash

I would hope that the top row of tiles cover NO paper.

Disagree , if only 5% of tile is not attached directly to clear substrate , the tile will NOT fall off wall.
OP is worried about the removing of wall paper and leaving a 'ragged gap between tile and wallpaper .