How to remove home décor vinyl decals
There is a wide range of custom vinyl decals available in this day and age to decorate your
home. They are easy to apply and can change the look and feel of a room.
Some common stickers used for home décor decals are trees, birds, plants and various shapes and designs. They are great to add a unique look and different texture to the walls of an otherwise bland space.
But before you decide to change up the look of your space with vinyl decals you may be wondering, how easy is it to remove if I want to change the room design?
How do vinyl decals affect redesign and resale value?
Before you start using any of your vinyl lettering or wall decals on your home, you may ask
the question of how this can affect the resale value of your home or the paint underneath. If you want to redesign at some point this is an important thing to think about.
When you are preparing your home for sale you will want to remove any personal accents, such as your custom home décor decals. You will need your home to be neutral, a blank canvas for potential buyers.
If you decide to use custom vinyl lettering and decals in a room such as a nursery or young child’s room then you will want to look ahead at redesign when the teen years roll around and their taste changes drastically.
Remove Wall Decals
It is essential to understand the process of removing vinyl decals for when you want to
redesign or return the walls to their prior state.
On a positive note, removing decals is quite easy but does require some patience to be removed carefully for the best results. Adhesive graphics and DIY lettering are designed to stick for the long term, sometimes years.
But they can come off easily if you use the correct process. Vinyl decals are particularly easy as they usually come off in one piece. If they are made well you can normally get started at one corner with your fingernail or a tool like a sharp knife to gently peel it back.
Make sure that once you begin you peel it off slowly to avoid taking off a large amount of paint as you remove it.
Help for Hard-to-Remove Decals
If the above process is not budging your stubborn wall art, you can try applying heat to the
decal with a hairdryer on a low setting to loosen the adhesive.
To avoid melting the vinyl you will want to hold it at a decent distance from the sticker. Gently pull on the decal once it is heated to see if the hairdryer has effectively loosened the adhesive below.
The only downside to this method is that it may leave a stain on the wall that will still require repainting. Keep the hairdryer on hand to loosen the adhesive as you go!
Remove Leftover Adhesive
When you have removed the decal you will want to tend to the adhesive that is left behind. It is important to do so before repainting the wall.
It can come off if you gently run your hand along the wall, as it will ball up and fall off. You should rinse the wall with a diluted ammonia solution and allow it to dry completely.
When You Might Need to Repaint
If you have used the correct removal methods then the paint on the wall behind should be
intact. In this case, you can wash the wall and leave t to dry so that is clean or ready to repaint a different colour.
However, there may be sun damage around the decal or paint fading or chipping to tend to. It may require different types of primer or brushes to get the evenest coat over the damage to the wall, so the opinion of a professional painter is a good place to start.
If you are going to paint yourself then some research into this area could be quite beneficial. This will prevent the effect of “ghosting”. Where the outline of the old decal can be seen on the wall beneath the new coat of paint.
