Walls are usually the most noticeable part of a room, especially if they are beautifully painted. But since walls occupy most parts of a room, there is no avoiding staining it.
On a daily basis, we touch our walls several times, and accidents cause unwanted spots. Especially if you have young kids at home, there is a high chance you will walk into a room and find the kid joyfully using the wall as an art canvas.
That’s why it’s important to clean painted walls. You don’t want some guests to come up and notice that as the first thing in your house, right? As often as we clean the floor or the windows, the walls are usually forgotten. But walls also need to be fresh and clean.
Luckily, there are many easy ways to clean painted walls. In this article, we will look at 5 such ways.
1. Wash to clean painted walls
To clean painted walls, let’s start with the simplest trick in the book, washing.
Most stains won’t require anything more than some warm water and mild detergent. Take a bucket and create a solution with water and the mildest cleaning detergent you can find.
Take the softest sponge available and dip it into the solution, then apply it on your walls.
Make sure not to soak the sponge too much. In case you accidentally end up over-soaking it, make sure to wring it out properly.
If there is too much dripping, it can cause there to be potential water stains on your walls, which will be another headache. After you’re done, leave it for five to ten minutes.
If you want a better reach on your walls, then use a sponge mop instead of a simple sponge. First, saturate the mop, then squeeze out the excess water.
Then work left to right from with the mop in a W shape. This will make sure the soapy water is applied to the walls properly. Same as before, leave it for five to ten minutes.
Now take another bucket, this time filled with clean water. Then rinse off the wall plastered with the soapy solution.
Finally, you can dry off the wall by putting a microfiber cloth onto a flat-headed mop and work in the same W motion as mentioned before. Though it’s a simple process, most easy stains come off with this.
2. Use vinegar
White wine vinegar is the age-old solution to every stain and you can use it to clean painted walls as well.
If the stain on your painted walls is refusing to come out with water and detergent, then your next option is to use a white vinegar solution.
It is a stronger chemical and can clean any stubborn stains or particularly grimy walls.
White wine vinegar is a weak form of acetic acid. It is effective at killing mould, germs, and bacteria, so any stains you have on your wall will be removed by it too.
There are a few ways to create the vinegar solution to clean painted walls.
All you need to do is create a 50:50 solution of water and white vinegar in a spray bottle. In other words, the amount of water and vinegar has to be equal.
Another approach you can take is to use a cup of white vinegar and mix it in a bucket full of warm water. If you took the first approach, now you can spray the spotted wall with the solution.
You then have to use a soft sponge to rub the wall until the stain comes off gently in both approaches. You won’t have to rinse afterwards, unlike the soapy water.
White vinegar solution and detergent solutions work especially well for walls with oil-based finishes. But if the wall is texture-painted, then you might require a bit more deep cleaning. For that, you only need to add 1 pinch of borax to the solution. The rest of the process remains the same.
3. Painted kitchen walls with grease require some degreaser
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So much cooking goes on in the kitchen! It’s no surprise that the walls are now filled with grease.
To clean painted walls in a kitchen, you need to be more careful with the maintenance and the cleaning. But don’t worry, it’s definitely not too difficult to take off the grease from the kitchen walls.
Earlier, we mentioned the water and detergent solution. If that doesn’t work, the vinegar and water solution.
You can try these out on the greasy walls first. Afterwards, you can do an additional wipe down with a gentle degreaser. That will do the trick like magic!
However, there is one thing you should be careful about. And that is harsh chemicals in the degreaser.
Harsh chemicals can cause a lot of damage to your painted walls, especially if they have a fuller finish like satin, flat, or eggshells. So make sure to not apply it on any kind of walls except ones with glossy or semi-gloss finishes.
Read the product instructions on the degreaser and follow them. It will help you avoid any unwanted streak marks.
4. Baking soda and water
Regardless of everything we have discussed above, there are some stains that always refuse to budge. That’s when baking soda will come to clean painted walls.
Right, you thought baking soda is only for baking? Absolutely not. It can work magic for the hardest stains and clean painted walls.
Baking soda is an abrasive cleaner and is also a natural deodoriser. Make a mixture of water and bicarbonate of soda or, in other words, baking soda.
All you need is half a cup of baking soda in a bucket of warm water. Then soak a soft cloth or towel into the mixture to spot clean your painted walls.
This will work surprisingly well on walls stained with crayons and pen marks. However, just to be safe, test the solution out on a wall that remains mostly hidden from plain sight.
See if there is any unusual reaction. If there isn’t, then you can try it out on visible parts to clean painted walls around the house.
5. For walls with latex paint, use a non-abrasive cleaner
Walls with latex paint require a bit of a different approach. The best way to clean painted walls in this case is to use a non-abrasive all-purpose cleaner combined with water.
Dip a sponge into the mixture, wring it dry properly to avoid dropping, then gently rub the wall. Make sure to put extra attention on places that get touched often.
After that, take another bucket of only warm water and use a second sponge to rinse. If the spots are more stubborn (smudges, fingerprints, scuffs, etc.), we go back to baking soda.
Make a paste with baking soda and water and rub the area with specifically a non-abrasive pad. If these don’t work either, then your last option is to use alcohol. Take a rag and dampen it with rubbing alcohol, then use it to clean the spots.
No sort of stain should give you a headache now. Let your kid do whatever they want with the walls. Because now you have the magic tricks to bring them back to normal. Remember that if none of these methods works to get off a stain (which is rather unlikely), it’s best to get the wall repainted.
