Expert shares how often you should actually wash your house walls
Owning your own home comes with myriad responsibilities: paying your mortgage, paying your bills, and paying the price if you don’t look after it properly. With the latter in mind, housebeautiful.com has been advising readers how to keep their walls in tip-top condition to ensure they keep looking bright and beautiful, for as long as possible.
The advice, particularly useful to those with children, or who are prone to cooking or make-up disasters, could come as a surprise to many believing that the only option is a costly repaint. Not so, says Octave Villar, one of the paint experts at Behr Paint Company, one of the largest manufacturers of paints for do-it-yourselves and professionals in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, who advises this wall-washing task is best repeated yearly to keep them in tip-top condition.
Octave says: “Renovating with a higher-sheen paint is preferred for safeguarding walls, especially for families with young children. An eggshell finish is a superior choice because it provides both durability and scrubability, while also offering a sheen that won't highlight wall imperfections."
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How to clean your painted walls
- To get started you’ll need: towels, alcohol, mild dish soap, sponges, and microfibre cloths
- Mix 1 tsp of dish soap in 4 cups of water in a bucket or bowl (if you don't want to make your own cleaning solution then use gentle cleaning wipes, such as Behr Swipes Interior Wall Wipes are specially formulated with a paint-safe formula)
- Turn the power off when working near outlets and switches
- Lay a towel along the bottom of the wall you want to clean
- Dampen the sponge and gently wipe and wash the wall
- Leave for 10 minutes
- Rinse with a clean, wet sponge
- Dry with a microfibre cloth
For stubborn stains (we’re looking at you, children’s marker pens) you will need a little bit more elbow grease, so after cleaning with wipes or a soap solution, spot clean using rubbing alcohol, or a stronger cleaner such as vinegar. In these cases, Villar outlines the need for extra caution with non-gloss finishes: "Harsh chemicals and intense scrubbing should be avoided on duller paint finishes like flat or satin,” he says. So while a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser can remove scuff marks, it can also take the top layer of your paint off if you're not careful.
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This advice is backed up on idealhome.co.uk, where TikTokers have been warned against extreme measures of what’s been termed “wall mopping”. With the hashtag racking up in excess of one million views on the social platform, experts are keen to point out that there can be paint pitfalls.
Despite its potential to cut down the cleaning time, particularly when reaching hard-to-reach areas, experts at paint supply company The Paint Shed advise against using the hack on your own walls, stating that certain paint types should not be scrubbed at all, otherwise you will damage the finish. “And if you have a flat or matt finish and you have not used a washable paint then you should not be using water or a mop to clean your walls. Flat finish walls do not mix well with water," they advise.
Commenting on this revelation, one Reddit user said: "I only wash them in the bathrooms, kitchen, and where I keep the cat boxes. I wipe them down once or twice a week depending on how dirty they are." While another user added: "We're meant to wash our walls?" One more user said: "I wash off fingerprints from around doorknobs and such, but the walls stay clean... maybe a little dusty."
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