An all-white house is one of the most popular styles that you will always find in the property magazine today. It’s a modern-yet-timeless decorating style that will never fail to make each room around look admirable and feel comfortable at the same time.
The main reasons that make all-white decor is adored by a lot of homeowners are it can make a small room look bigger and it can match with other shades easily. On the other side tho, you may have to regularly clean your white walls as they can get dirty quicker than the other colors.
But no worries, you can refer to the white walls cleaning guide below that you can get done in no time all by yourself.
White Walls Cleaning Guide
Prepare these supplies:
- Gentle liquid dish soap
- Warm water
- Non-abrasive sponge
- Vacuum with brush attachment or duster
- Bucket
- Microfiber cloth
- Dry mop
- Magic eraser
Follow these steps:
Remove any decor items
Of course, you can’t properly clean your white walls with some obstacles around, you have to remove anything that may get in the way like wall art, floating walls, and other decorative items. If you are willing enough, you can also clean those items so they will look nice and clean when you reinstall them later.
Dust the walls
Dust is the white walls’ enemy, once they get built up, you will see that the walls look really ugly. Before you use any cleaning solution, you can start with dusting with any type of duster or vacuum with a brush attachment. If you don’t have a vacuum in hand, you can use a mop instead.
To do the job properly, you always have to work your way from top to bottom. Be careful that you might scratch the walls with the hard parts of the duster.
Make Your DIY Cleaning Solution
Now it’s time to mix some supplies to make your own DIY cleaning solution. Just follow the steps below:
- Fill your bucket with a gallon of warm water.
- Add a few drops of mild dish soap.
- Mix all the supplies thoroughly.
Keep in mind to not use too much dish soap as you may find it difficult to rinse and the residue may leave stains around.
Before you start washing the walls, you need to test the cleaning solution in the hidden spots (like the area under the couch or behind the cupboard). It’s to ensure that the cleaning solution doesn’t damage the color. If you want to be really sure, you might want to let the cleaning solution sit for hours.
Wash the walls
Once you are sure that your cleaning solution doesn’t damage anything, you can start applying it to your dirty white walls. Here’s what you can do:
- Soak the sponge or clean cloth in the cleaning solution.
- You have to wring the sponge or cloth so it’s just damp and not overwet which may lead to water or bubbly stains.
- Start washing the walls in a circular motion. Just like dusting the walls, you have to work from top to bottom, so the cleaning agent that drops will get wiped down.
Touch the details
After you have cleaned the entire walls, you can move to clean the details like the trim and baseboards. Just use a similar cleaning solution to handle the areas.
If your DIY cleaning solution doesn’t really handle the stains on your white walls, that’s the time when you need to grab the Magic Eraser or other type of melamine foam.
In general, you can simply follow the manufacturer’s instructions in which you just have to damp the foam and apply it to the stained area. Keep in mind to always do the job carefully since the abrasiveness of the foam may damage the wall’s finish.
(Read also: How to Wash Drapes Professionally in Home All by Yourself)
When do you need to actually clean your white walls?
Ideally, you can wash your white walls with the steps above every six months since the dust and debris may have been heavily accumulating within that time. Twice a year is definitely a good time to deep-clean an all-white home that most homeowners don’t really do these days. It’s either you can get the job done all by yourself or hire a professional.
You can also refer to some signs below that can tell you that you need to clean your white walls as soon as possible:
- Dust accumulation on the surface of the walls.
- Brown stains on the walls.
- Sticky dirt on the walls.
- Spider webs in the corner of the walls that also touch the ceiling.
If you have some pets or kids around, you might need to clean the walls more often since accidental spills may happen a lot.
Do you have to repaint the walls?
Repainting your walls can be quite tiring and you may not really be willing enough to get the job done all by yourself. However, there are some circumstances when you have to execute a new paint job which include:
- Scuffs remain there after several cleaning steps.
- Water or smoke stains heavily damage the walls.
- The paint has been damaged.
You might think that you just need to repaint the stained area rather than repainting the entire wall, but it’s not really a good idea. It’s because the fresh paint will look different than the rest of the wall, which, of course, looks kind of ugly.
However, if your paint is not more than 2 years old, you might be able just to cover the stained area since it may still look like new.
Do you have to hire a pro?
To determine whether help from a pro is necessary or not is when you still find brown stains that can’t go after the thorough cleaning process (even after several times). These types of stains can be caused by nicotine residue. That is the time when you need to hire a pro that will professionally clean the stains in a very safe and effective way,
