What to wash my walls with?

My fiance and I are cleaning up our apartment so we can have it ready to move into by the time we're married. The people who lived there before us were messy and they left the place a disaster, since this will be both of our first apartments we don't know much about painting and stuff so i have a couple questions. The walls are stained and we want to paint them, they are plaster walls and they are painted already if that makes a difference. Do I need to wash them first? If yes what do I wash them with? Also one room has paint over wallpaper can we remove the wallpaper? Someone told me it would just wind up making holes in the wall and it wasn't worth it, but I really hate that there are seems all over my painted wall. Also the moldings are painted I really wanted to remove the paint and have the wood underneath stained, but again I was discouraged. I was told that it would be way to much work and I would be there forever just trying to remove the paint off of one jamb. Is that true? Is it a bad idea to remove the paint and go with a natural wood look? If it's not that hard what would I use to do this?





Thanks in advance for the help. I am new to this and I really appreciate the help.What to wash my walls with?
1. Yes, wash the walls first. Use TSP. (home depot or lowes carries it). This will remove all the junk which would stop your paint from adhering properly.





2. The moldings are probably not worth removing the stuff from. It can be done, but if this is a rental it's just not worth it. You would have to try (if you can) to take them down, use a paint remover, and then finish them before you put them back. Instead, and this looks really good with a natural finish, paint them white (gloss white, use a high quality white, such as ultrapure white (home depot carries it)





3. The wallpaper is easily removed. Score it take something such as an xactoknife, or a wallpaper removal tool. This has small blades, and basically what you are going to do is to cut holes in the wallpaper, but not all the way through. Then spray it with water (do one section at a time). The water will soften the glue holding the wallpaper to the walls, and then after 10-15 minutes, you should be able to pull the wall paper off the walls. There will be some residual paper left, or perhaps some glue, but this is a simple matter to remove also (use TSP, or if necessary a plastic putty knife).





Good luck, it's not all that hard, just time consuming. The wallpaper removal should take less than one day depending on the size of the room.