This weekend I had the chance (and the time) to reorganize my daughter’s bedroom. Not happy to admit, it has been six years that we do not paint our home’s walls, and believe me you can notice all the marks and stains. So, I had time to deep clean the room, but not to paint it and I knew I had to do something about those walls… so I decided to wash them! They look like new now!

The trick is to go wild and be gentle at the same time so you don’t end up with the paint on the cloth. You will need a big sponge, a micro-fibre cloth (or an old towel), a bowl of soapy water, and some washing up liquid.

Here are the steps to follow to clean your painted walls (in case you are a busy bee like me):

1- Decide which area of the wall you would like to clean. You cannot clean the whole wall in one go, so you will need to mentally divide the wall and clean one area at a time.

2- Soak the sponge in the soapy water and then add some more washing up liquid on the sponge. Wash the wall on circular movements. Do not clean only the stains as this will leave marks when the wall gets dry, you have to wash the whole wall with the soaked sponge (You may want to put some newspapers or towels on the floor because this is going to get very wet!).

3- With a damp microfibre cloth, wipe down any excess water and clean any stains left that you were unable to clean with the sponge.

4- Wait for the wall to dry and done! you have a clean wall!

The points to remember here are:

1- Always clean “square” areas of the wall, not only the marks or stains; this way, once the wall is dry the paint will look unified.

2- Don’t let the sponge get dry if you don’t want to strip the paint off the wall.

3- Always clean in circle motions and don’t press to hard.

4- The big sponge is for a reason. If you use a small one you tend to put more pressure on it, ending with the paint on the sponge.

5- This works with non water proof painting also (remember you have to go wild but gentle!).

Happy cleaning!