Wallpaper removal in Bangkok: what stripping costs, and what the wall needs next

There's a particular kind of wallpaper that every older Bangkok condo seems to have. A seam that lifts a little more each rainy season. A bubble behind the sofa. A pattern that was very much of its moment, and the moment has passed.

If that's your wall, you're probably wondering about wallpaper removal in Bangkok: what it costs, whether you can do it yourself, and what you'll find underneath. Here's the short version. Stripping the old paper is the easy, inexpensive part. The real cost lives in what the wall needs afterwards — and it's rarely priced clearly. So let's do that.

First, see whether a repair will do

Not every tired wall needs stripping. Some problems are genuinely small.

• A lifted edge or a seam that's opened up. Usually a simple re-press with fresh adhesive. Quick, tidy, and nobody will ever know.
• A bubble. Often the same story: the paper has let go of the wall in one spot and can be pressed back down.
• A tear, a stain or a scuffed patch. This is where repair gets hard. Print batches vary slightly in colour, and patterns get discontinued, so a new piece rarely matches the old one on either side. In our experience a damaged patch more often means re-papering the whole wall than invisibly mending it.
• Dark spots or a musty smell. If the backing has gone mouldy, repair isn't the answer — the water is. Find and fix the source first, let the wall dry out properly, then re-hang. Our guide to wallpaper and Bangkok humidity explains why it happens.

For small repairs especially, we always say: keep your leftover rolls, and keep them from the same batch. They're the best insurance a papered wall can have.

What stripping wallpaper actually involves

How easily old paper comes off depends almost entirely on what it's made of.

Non-woven wallpaper is the easy one. It's designed to be stripped dry, in whole lengths, with no steam and no soaking — you lift a corner and peel. Every design in AS Création's Cosiness collection is non-woven, which is one reason we like it for rooms that may change hands one day.

Vinyl and older paper-backed wallpapers are more stubborn. The surface usually needs scoring first, so water can get behind it. Then it's softened and scraped off in pieces. It's not difficult work, but it's slow, and it's where most of a removal job's hours go.

The wall underneath matters too. A concrete or plaster wall can take a firm scraper. Gypsum board (the plasterboard used for most condo partition walls) needs a much gentler hand. Scrape too hard and you tear the board's paper face, which turns a stripping job into a repair job.

And if there are two or three layers of old paper stacked on top of each other, expect it to take longer. Paper hung over paper is still common in older buildings, and it's the reason we advise against papering over what's already there — more on that in our installation cost guide.

Doing it yourself

Perfectly possible on a small wall. A Thai paint maker's own guide suggests a home method: score the paper, spray it with a 1:1 mix of fabric softener and water, give it a few minutes, then scrape. Protect the floor, switch off the sockets on that wall, and go gently on gypsum board. The same guide advises leaving the wall about three days after stripping before you paint or paper again, so it's properly dry.

What wallpaper removal costs in Bangkok

Our rate is ฿60 per square metre to remove old wallpaper, added to a new installation. It sits a little above some older stripping figures you'll find quoted on forums, which tend to be years old now.

For context, one Bangkok painting contractor publishes a full strip-and-repaint breakdown at roughly:

• stripping — about ฿50/m²
• skim coat — about ฿150/m²
• paint (primer and two coats) — about ฿150/m²

That's around ฿350/m² all in, and stripping is only a small slice of it. Which is the whole point of this article: taking paper off is inexpensive in the grand scheme. Getting the wall back to a smooth, sound surface is where the money goes.

What the wall needs after stripping

Once the paper's off, you'll see what you've really got. Often it's fine. Sometimes it isn't.

Stripping can leave a wall pitted, patchy and uneven — little craters where old adhesive pulled the surface away, or old repairs that were hidden under the pattern. A wall like that usually needs a skim coat: a thin layer of plaster trowelled over the whole surface to make it flat again. Gypsum board with a torn face may need patching before anything else.

We price wall repairs from what we find on site, not from a table, because two walls that look the same in a photo can need very different amounts of work. That's also why a site visit is worth it: it costs ฿1,000, and that's credited back to your order.

Re-papering, or painting instead

That's a bigger decision, and it has its own guide.

What we'll say here is simply what we do. Our service is strip, prepare and re-paper: we remove the old wallpaper, get the wall ready, and hang the new one. We don't offer painting.

If you'd rather paint, a painting contractor handles that stage. Ask them for three things by name: a skim coat where the wall needs it, a primer, and two top coats. If a quote just says "paint", it's worth asking what's underneath the word.

A worked example: one 30 m² bedroom

Purely illustrative, so you can see how the lines add up.

• Removal: 30 m² × ฿60 = ฿1,800
• Installation: the first 30 m² is ฿1,800
• Wallpaper from our premium range, from ฿400/sqm: 30 m² × ฿400 = ฿12,000
• Or signature, such as Versace at ฿1,200/sqm: 30 m² × ฿1,200 = ฿36,000
• Any wall repair: quoted on site

So stripping and hanging together come to ฿3,600 on that room. Double-height walls add ฿1,800. Beyond 30 m², installation is ฿250 per further roll (about 5 m²) — the full arithmetic lives on our installation page.

Notice which number is the small one. It's rather reassuring, really: the old paper was never going to be the expensive part.

How long wallpaper really lasts

Published Thai figures disagree wildly, from a few years to around twelve with good care. The honest answer is that it depends on the backing, the room and how it's looked after. A non-woven paper in a dry, well-ventilated bedroom will outlive a paper-backed one in a steamy bathroom every time.

Send us the wall

If your wallpaper is peeling, bubbling, stained or simply not you any more, send us a few photos of the wall and a rough measurement. We'll tell you honestly whether it's a repair or a fresh start, and what the wall is likely to need. The design consultation is always free — start here whenever you're ready.