How to Maintain Your Painted Interior Walls

So, you spent hours painting and decorating the walls in your home, but now you are wondering what it will take to keep them looking great. You have to deal with oily fingerprints, pets that rub up against the walls, scuff marks near the floor and dust and debris that finds its way all over the walls. Pretty soon, you will be left with a painted wall that doesn’t look nearly as nice as it used to.

However, there are some maintenance tips we can give you that will make a huge difference in how your walls look. You can have beautiful walls all year long and not have to do major repaints a few months after painting them. If you follow these guidelines and use these tips, you can keep your walls looking their best for years to come.

You want to start by regularly vacuuming the walls with the soft brush attachment on your vacuum cleaner. This will deal with the dust and most of the dirt and other particles on your walls. Just vacuum gently, without pushing the vacuum hard against the wall, and you will get rid of most visible debris.

The marks and oils are a bit tougher to deal with, but you do want to address them as soon as you notice them. You can use bleaching cloths and other mild cleaning agents to get rid of them. Make sure that whatever you use is designed to be safe for paint and that it won’t take the paint off with the marks. For the tougher stains and marks, you can use baking soda and water, mixed into a paste, and rub it onto the wall with a nonabrasive cleaning tool, such as a soft rag or cloth. This works really well for latex-based paints, which make up the majority of paint that people use on their walls.

For oil-based paint, you can clean using a white vinegar and water mixture. Just rub the affected areas with this solution using a soft cloth.

For enamel and other flat paints, you want to deal with stains quickly. The longer you wait to clean them up, the worse they will be to get rid of. You can use something like a Magic Eraser to get off those tough stains. Milder stains can be cleaned away using a rag dipped in warm water. Just be careful not to rub and clean so hard that you chip away at the paint. That’s the biggest danger with using anything to clean your walls. You want to protect the paint job as you clean the wall, and striking that balance can be difficult. The trick is to start out gentle and go tougher and tougher until the dirt or stain comes off.

With these tips, you should be able to keep your walls clean and looking great for a long time to come. Just be sure to address stains and marks on your walls as soon as you can so that your work is as simple as possible.