7 Tips To Clean Walls & Keep Them Looking Beautiful
People often overlook the necessity to wash their walls as a part of their normal cleaning. Sticky fingerprints, smudges, and stains can impact the walls like any other area of the house, but there’s no need to grab your paint every time!
There are multiple ways to freshen up your walls without the need to re-paint them.
Whether your wallpaper or painted walls have piled stubborn oil stains or smudges and smears over time, follow these quick steps and have them looking new & beautiful again!
Tips to keep your House Walls Clean & Beautiful in London
1. Assemble the supplies
Cleaning your walls does not require any special cleaner. You may have almost all the things that you need at your home itself. For eg
- Water
- Liquid dish soap
- Soft cloths
- Two buckets
- Stain remover
- Vacuum with a dust brush attachment
- Baking soda
- Foam craft brush
- Hydrogen peroxide
These basic supplies are gentle enough to use on most wall treatments while still getting the job done. Also, lay towels along the base of the walls to protect floors and collect any dust or drips.
2. Dust the walls
Dust your walls using a dust brush attachment, vacuum your walls followed by wiping them with a cloth.
Use a foam brush to easily wipe away the dust from the baseboards & molding. You can also wrap a dry mop head with a clean rag and dust from top to bottom without fear of scratches or dents.
3. Get water & liquid dish soap
As the dust is wiped away, it’s time to wash the walls.
Get one bucket filled with a gallon of lukewarm water and mix clear liquid dish soap & water in the other.
Soak the cloth in the bucket’s solution & wring it out well.
4. Start with Testing a patch on the wall
As you’re done preparing the cleaning solution, you should always first test an inconspicuous area like the section of the wall which is behind a painting, or something which is not usually visible, to make sure it won’t damage the material.
Wallpaper and matte paint are more delicate than high-gloss paint, so it’s good to do a little test first.
5. Gently clean in circular motions
Once you know your surface is safe to work on with the prepared solution, it’s time to clean the whole wall.
Start from the top of the wall and work your way down, go over the surface in light, circular motions.
Apply little moisture to avoid bubbling or watermarks. Also, make sure not to apply too much pressure while cleaning in a circular motion.
6. Clean any stubborn stains
If there are any stubborn stains on your painted walls, make use of baking soda and water. Baking soda is a natural stain fighter, mix a half cup of baking soda with a quarter cup of water until it forms a paste.
Slowly rub that paste into the stained part of the wall and the stain should weaken & lift.
There’s one more stubborn stain removal technique that is using Hydrogen peroxide. That works wonders on red wine stains. Take your cleaning rag (with the dish soap solution) and dab a little hydrogen peroxide onto it. Gently press it into the stain for five minutes to lift it.
7. Rinse & Dry the walls
Soak a cloth in clean water, and wring it out well. Wipe the wall with a cloth to rinse. Gently run a clean, dry cloth over the surface.
Best practices to Clean Wood Walls in London
Textured walls like wood require a different approach for cleaning and maintenance.
To deep clean and condition your wood walls, you can mix your own gentle wall cleaner with one cup of water, 1/4 cup white vinegar, 1/2 cup mineral oil, and about 15 drops of lemon oil.
Mix your ingredients thoroughly and use a clean cloth to work the cleaner into the wood going with the grain.
For stubborn stains, use more pressure and a circular motion to lift more of the stain from the grain. There’s no need to rinse; just let the wood air dry.
Best practices to Wallpapers in London
To clean wallpaper, always start by dusting the wall with a broom wrapped in a microfiber cloth.
Fingerprints and smudges can often be removed by spot cleaning with a gum eraser, but for older or more delicate wallpapers, opt for a “dry sponge” from a hardware store. Use long strokes to remove dirt more gently with the dry sponge, rather than focusing on the spot cleaning.
Scrubbable wallpapers are more durable but even with durable wallpaper, you still shouldn’t use an abrasive cleaner on the surface.
Washable wallpapers can be easily cleaned with a natural sponge wet with soapy water, as long as it is wrung out very well.
Wipe the sponge across the wall surface gently, being cautious so that the wallpaper doesn’t get too wet, and immediately follow up with a dry white cloth to absorb extra moisture.
To conclude, be it Painted, papered, or paneled, the walls in our home get dirty thanks to dust, smudges, and those pesky preschool marker/jelly/clay-covered fingerprints.
Make your home look a little less lived-in by adopting a cleaning strategy for all wall surfaces.