One of the most popular questions that perturb the best of us as even the most expensive or good-quality painted walls tends to lose their spark over time is how do you clean walls without removing paint. The daily activities knowingly or unknowingly leave fingerprints, household debris or dirt, smudges, and permanent stains on your painted walls. Especially the existence of kids and pets inside your home can easily ruin the essence and beauty of your walls.
You might feel disheartening stare at the discoloration of your walls for weeks and look for effective ways without removing the paint. Too much scrubbing and using the most challenging cleaning procedures could damage the walls to the extreme.
You need to pick the easy-to-follow and affordable cleaning methods without removing the paint and keeping the walls in check. Here are some tips and tricks where you will explore the ways on how to clean walls without removing paint.
Helpful Tips & Tricks To Clean Walls Without Removing Paint
Make your dirty-looking walls fresh, clean, and spotless again using these simple maintenance methods without seeking help from a professional. And the methods are:
How to Clean Walls Like a Professional?
Before you begin your process, it is essential to determine the type of paint you have applied to your walls. Be it oil-based, latex or emulsion paints, the kind of paint will help you ease the process. It further allows you to use the right cleaning products to remove the stains effortlessly. For instance, paint with flat or stain finishes is durable that doesn’t require harsh chemicals. Instead, you can use a mild detergent mix in water to remove unnecessary stains. On the other hand, you can use a non-abrasive cleaner to clean off the latex paint finishes.
Preparation is the Key
Another important step is to ease the paint cleaning process by preparing the rooms systematically and accordingly. This can be done by removing any exquisite art piece, paintings, wall hangings, and other valuable objects from the walls. Moving furniture to a safe place gives you plenty of space. It allows you to dust and wipe the walls without any interruptions.
The Cleaning Tools You Need
Giving your walls a perfect finish has to be your only motto. To get rid of the top layer of grimes, you need to have essential tools to make the process smoother. Here’s what important supplies you must carry:
- Microfiber cloth
- Water (Not too cold or hot)
- Drop cloth (a pair of old sheets and newspapers)
- Dishwashing soap or Liquid hand
- Tack cloth
Paint roller - Spray bottle
- Natural Sea Sponges
- Two medium-sized bucket
- Stain remover
- Vacuum attached with a dust brush
- Baking soda or Vinegar
- Hydrogen peroxide
Use more simple products instead of abrasive or ammonia-based chemicals to get the job done.
Start with Spot-Test
It is better to act smart rather than crumble under pressure to achieve accurate results. Not jumping directly to the cleaning is the key to keeping the outlook and color of your walls in check. You must go for a small spot test on your walls. This gives you the idea or framework of whether the things will work in your favor or not. If the cleaning solution is too light or harsh, it could end up spreading the stains further rather than lifting them.
Creating A Powerful Cleaning Solution
Now that you have collected all the necessary ingredients needed to make your walls look elegant again. It is time to create a result-oriented cleaning solution that can work in your favor. For making the cleaning solution:
- Take a gallon of warm water or tap water in a medium-sized bucket
- Add one tablespoon of dishwashing soap and a cup of vinegar to the correct quantity of water
- Mix both the ingredients thoroughly
- Dip the cloth in the solution
- Gently remove stains like crayon, pencil, or ink stains (put little pressure to remove the not so easy stains if needed)
- Rinse the cloth in the solution after you have done
- Repeat the process several times until the walls look stain-free
Giving Priority to High Traffic Areas First
It is advisable to prioritize high traffic areas first rather than cleaning the entire house walls frequently. For instance, the portion near your switchboards and behind your sofas needs more emphasis and deep cleaning. You must also remove the dirt and dust that accumulated behind the TV or any electronic item for satisfactory results. Wash those portions properly to make the walls look attractive.
How to Clean Painted Walls?
If you encounter harsh stains on walls, turn to baking soda mix with warm water using a damp sponge. Why baking soda? Because baking soda is considered as the natural stain fighter that aids in cleaning even the toughest stains, especially from your kitchen walls. For getting the optimal results, you need little scrubbing since the goal is to remove only the stains from the walls.
How to clean painted walls without damaging the paint?
Every stain that you see on your painted walls has to be treated thoughtfully and using the proper techniques. If you aim to remove just the red wine stains, then dabbing damp cloth in hydrogen peroxide can work. After this, the solution can be directly used to wipe out the stain and press for five minutes to lift the same.
How to clean walls fast?
While fingerprints or smudges can be taken off easily using a damp cloth. It would be best to use unexpected techniques like iron to get rid of any cooking oil stains from your kitchen area. This technique involves your iron that needs to be placed on paper towels covering your stains for at least one minute. The hotter the paper towel gets, the more quickly it will absorb the stains ruining the look of your walls.
How to clean apartment walls?
Regardless of the paint, you have used on your walls, dusting your walls regularly using a damp cloth or good quality vacuum cleaner can add more value to your cleaning process. Just take time to wipe off the scuffs and surface stains visible on the walls using trouble-free methods. Maintaining your walls on a daily basis will save you money, effort, and energy at the same time.
5 Additional Tried and Tested Methods to Clean Walls Without Removing Paint
Most people don’t feel comfortable using the typical cleaning methods. They are more inclined towards alternative DIY tricks or techniques to make their walls look cleaner and brighter while staying at home. Here are some of the tried and tested alternatives to clean walls without removing the paint:
Toothpaste
It’s pretty surprising to know that the cleaning properties of your toothpaste might work on your white walls too. Just take the right quantity of the toothpaste, rub some amount to cover the marked surface or the stain using an old toothbrush. Sounds too good to be perfect, doesn’t it?
Flour or Cornstarch
Who would have imagined that flour or cornstarch- the most basic ingredient available in your kitchen can save your walls? Make the paste using flour or cornstarch, spread the correct quantity evenly on the stain. Leave the same for two or three minutes, and you will witness that the oil stain is gone forever.
Sticky Remover
A sticky remover is a great choice and highly specialized product to remove those not so appealing sticky residues from your walls. This remover might do the work in case you are looking to wipe out scuff marks or other related stains from the surface.
Hair Dryer
Well, if you don’t have sticky remover available at home, then a hairdryer might do the trick. The heat coming out of the hairdryer can loosen even the unknown greasy chemicals from the walls.
White Vinegar
Like the basking sods, vinegar also acts as an effective and efficient cleaning agency to remove the stains with no effort. To remove the crayon stains, you need white vinegar to scrape off the residue completely. Just take a toothbrush or sponge, dip nicely on the white vinegar and slowly move the same in the circular motion. This cleaning agent will serve the purpose and make your walls look newly painted.
Surface Cleaner
If your walls seem to be holding years of stains and grease, then picking the surface cleaner would be an ideal choice. Use the surface cleaner gently on the surface using the cloth to take off the dirt and dust. Repeat the process several times for a perfect paint finish like a pro.
Tell me the best way to clean stains on walls?
Cleaning your walls is a troublesome as well as a tiring process. This entire cleaning process takes time and sometimes leaves the stains or spots behind after you have completed the process. It is better to take some preventive measures to keep your walls look spot-free.
- Use the duster to take off the dust from your walls or ceilings once or twice a month.
- Don’t wait for the spot to remain visible in your walls. Take quick spot treatments by treating the spots as soon as they appear. Use the dish soap water to rise off the spot immediately.
- The best you can do is avoid touching the walls with your hands. Your hands might give oil, grease, or any stains to your walls that you are not familiar with.
- Keep the atmosphere of your home vibrant. Opening the windows and doors will eliminate the moisture buildup in your washroom or storeroom.
- Keep your walls dry and in shape in every season
The Bottom Line
No matter whether your walls have changed the color or become darker and darker over time, following easy tricks can naturally light up your entire space. It’s indeed a dream for many to live in a comfortable, cozy, and tidy home. So why ruin the look of the whole area with the dirty and messy-looking walls.
Now that you have familiarized yourself with cleaning wall stains, it is the right time to easily remove any type of stain without removing the original paint from the walls. However, some unsightly stains are too complex, and you must approach or seek a bit of expert advice to remove them. To remove stains from walls without removing paint, seek help from professionals if things get worse. You can also use color-matching technology to cover the stain areas from your living, kitchen, dining, or bathroom walls.
Therefore, opt for the simple, edgy, and easy-to-use tips cleaning methods to clean the entire walls without removing the paint.
