How To Clean Painted Bathroom Walls

You love your sunshine yellow walls, but that crayon masterpiece your 2-twelvemonth-old created might non exist your favorite.

Earlier grabbing a scrubby sponge and your favorite spray cleaner, here'due south what a professional painter has to say about safely cleaning those colorful walls. It's and so uncomplicated, you may be surprised!

How to clean latex-painted interior walls

According to Wil Bias, owner of MB Painting and Maintenance Services, LLC, in New Orleans, cleaning walls depends primarily on whether the pigment is oil-based or latex. To safely clean latex-painted interior walls, follow these steps.

What you'll need:

Dish detergent
Water
Bucket
Distilled white vinegar
Sponge

What yous'll do:

Mix three or four drops of dish detergent in half-filled bucket of h2o. (Or you can get "old school" and exercise the cleaning with vinegar: Apply ii or three tablespoons of distilled white vinegar to a gallon of water. Using vinegar to clean a painted room can be surprisingly effective.)
Wet a sponge in the mixture and wring it out to dry. (This is important as you don't desire to mess upwards your walls with lines of dripping water.)
Wipe off the dirt, rinse the sponge and repeat as needed. This works for all types of latex pigment — flat, semi-gloss and gloss.
Brand sure the sponge is wrung out dry before cleaning effectually electrical outlets, light switches and telephone connections. Before cleaning dirty outlet covers, turn off electricity to those areas to avoid shocks.

Bias cautions that you should never use a degreaser or whatsoever other harsh chemic cleaners on latex-painted walls.

"If marks don't come off using but soap and h2o or white vinegar and water, you lot'll have to repaint."

How to clean oil-based painted interior walls

Considering oil-based paints are a bit hardier, in add-on to using the detergent or vinegar and water mixture, you can safely use a mild degreaser to remove grease, especially on kitchen walls.

What you'll need:

Dish detergent
Water
Bucket
Distilled white vinegar
Sponge
Balmy degreaser

What you lot'll do:

Follow the instructions for latex walls above.
Follow the instructions on the degreaser's packaging to safely utilize it to become rid of any grease or buildup on the walls in the kitchen.

As with latex-painted walls, never use a scrubby sponge, Teflon pad or harsh chemicals to clean walls painted with oil-based paints. "If you exercise, you'll exit permanent streak marks every place you wipe," Bias said.

And, of class, follow the in a higher place precautions when cleaning around electric and phone outlets.

How to clean exterior walls

To clean exterior painted walls, whether latex or oil-based, follow these steps.

What y'all'll demand:

Garden hose
Pump garden sprayer
Jomax
Bleach
Water
Soft scrubbing castor
Optional: Pressure washer

What you'll do:

Showtime by wetting the walls.
And so, using a pump garden sprayer, lightly spray the walls with a mixture of i/2 cup Jomax, ane cup of bleach and enough water to fill the container.
Allow the mixture to work for fifteen minutes, then scrub with a soft-scrubbing castor. This volition remove mildew, mold and other dirt.
Rinse with a garden hose.

When cleaning a two-story house, a garden hose may not reach high plenty to completely rinse the walls. In that example, y'all can utilize a force per unit area washer but only if it'due south fitted with a 25-caste nozzle and y'all don't use pressure. Just spray the water as it comes out. Using force per unit area could damage the pigment and cut into the siding.

Using interviews with specialists, online reviews and personal experience, TODAY editors, writers and experts take care to recommend items nosotros really like and promise y'all'll relish! TODAY does have chapter relationships with various online retailers. So, while every product is independently selected, if you buy something through our links, nosotros may go a pocket-size share of the acquirement.

This article was originally published on Sep. 17, 2015.