Demonstrations

Wallpaper removal & installation in a Biedermeier cabinet.

A Little history of Biedermeier:

The style known today as Biedermeier was popular in the early 19th century throughout most of Northern Europe, particularly in Germany. Officially, Biedermeier was only produced between 1810 and 1835. Revival periods include 1860, late 19th Century and again in the 1920s. Most of the furniture from that era remain anonymous and dateless, in character with the modest craftsmen who created the style. But the impact of its unfussy style and clean lines is still felt today.

Many assume that Biedermeier is the name of a celebrated cabinetmaker of the time, but the name is more commonly attributed to a satirical cartoon popular in early 19th century Europe.

Biedermeier decoration and furniture can be recognised by its key factors - clarity, proportion and restraint.

Decorative materials were marble and sandstone used for ornamentation. The dominating colours for the style were clair bois (pale wood) and black ebony inlay.

Article supplied by:
Karl Kemp and Associates Antiques & Interiordezine.com

	This is a picture of the condition the Biedermeier was in when I got it at the shop. There were only two layers of wallpaper, the last. visible layer was likely installed in the 1930's or 40's (anyone an expert in dating old wallpaper styles?) Underneath was a layer of floral type paper that I think dated from when it was built.
	Here are several of my tools. 2 metal flat trowels, an exacto knife with a not too sharp tip, sheets of plastic, hot water in a spray bottle, gloves and clean rags to absorb water, a bucket of warm water. I've done a lot of wallpaper stripping in my time, I've used steamers, I've used chemical, this & that, but I've concluded that the best technique is hot water in a spray bottle, an exacto knfie & some metal trowels.
	The first thing you want to do is lightly score the surface. In this circumstance, I lightly scored the knife across the paper surface to help open it up to the water. When dealing with really old materials like this, it's best to wear protective gloves as there can be dangerous & highly toxic chemicals in these old "manmade materials" such as lead, arsenic, cadmium etc.
	This is where the fun begins - by soaking the paper surface. This can be a very trickey process because you are in a race against the closck now, depending on the underlying surface. In this example, the underlying surface is wood rather than drywall board, lathe & plaster, or cement (cement is the best as you don't have to worry too much about just how wet you get the surface. In this instance, you have to be concerned about warping the wood, or potentially raising the grain of the wood.
	At this point I wait a few minutes, normally with a wallpaper thats over wallboard or gyprock, you need to wait as much as 5-10 mintutes before testing. This picture is showing me testing just how soft the paper is after a few minutes. In this case it is coming loose quite quickly, but the paper needs more water.
	You will find that often you need multiple coatings of water before paper begins to lift well. Be careful, very careful not to gouge your underlying surface with the metal trowell, but I find plastic trowells are not strong enough for this job usually.
	The paper is coming off quite well now. Notice I have switched to a larger trowel & there is a towel at the bottom of the cabinet to absorb excess water applications. Keep the water warm in the spray bottle, & you'll often need much more water than you thought. Use a clean water bucket to keep excess glue building up on the trowel as you scrape because with the paper will come the old glue.
	The shelves needed to be stripped also.
	Wash everything down with warm soapy water & then immediately dry everything off. Having good air circulation also will help keep the humidity down somewhat. The process that you have just completed is a balance between getting the paper wet enough to remove, but not too wet that it damages the underlying wall structure, whether it be wood or plaster.
	In this picture, I have already cut & pasted up the base, top & upper sections around the panel inlays & I am trimming up the edge. Normally you would cut the overlap after pasting it up, but because of the delicate inlay folds, I wanted the inlay panels to be precut. Normally when you wallpaper, you are working in a 2D space, but a cabinet is 3D, the sides, back, bottom & top are all getting papered, so you not only may have a pattern to match, but you may also have some very difficult corners to cut, & because of the cramped workspace, it could be very difficult to cut, etc.
	I cut a template panel that would fit exactly because of the slight imperfections in the panel inlay size.
	The new panels were cut & pasted up.
	Installation of the final panel.
	Smoothing out the final panel.
	Finished!