Do you clean your walls? How often and with what?

[Smee]

How often do you wash your walls? What type of surface are they? What do you clean them with and how often?

I'm sorta gauging my slobbishness here. I kind of dab at yuck when I notice it, but today I took some household cleaner and washed my kitchen walls. Apparently, I don't notice often enough or someone has food fights in there when I'm not looking. I have paper coated drywall, and I'm planning on painting it soon, so it needs to be clean, but I'm not entirely sure how to prep it. It's not traditional wallpaper that peels cleanly. It seems to be a part of the drywall in that it takes bits with it if I try to peel it, so against my initial intuition, we'll probably be painting over it.

Anyway, my walls have been woefully neglected. Do you regularly wash your walls?

[kremsh]

I don't have wallpaper walls, pretty much just painted drywall I guess. I just vacuum the dust bunnies off them every few months or so. Cabinets, though they are a different story. I don't wash them enough, but when I do it's just soap and water and it never seems to get everything off. Maybe I should use Mr. Clean or something.....

[JaimeLynn]

I have a 1 and 2 yr old and I highly HIGHLY recommend Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. I swear they're miracle workers

[tinkinpink84]

Oh yeah i always use the magic erasers! They get lots off my walls. But eh i put darker color in the kitchen! Didnt realize how messy those walls get when they are white!! Those magic erasers work wonders. Quick wipedowns i get a towel and all purpose cleaner. For noticable spots i break out the magic eraser. I should prob do it more often then I do. Back in september though we painted all the walls aside from the master bedroom and den.

[moxi]

I use Mr.clean magic erasers too, love them! In the Kitchen I have a semi-gloss paint and I use a damp cloth and mild degreaser and wipe the walls and cabinets down. BTW-I have painted over wall paper before....try not to. If you have to, prep, prep, prep. Make sure all the seams are secured down, sanded down, all the finish on the paper is sanded off. Then prime it with good primer, then use a quality paint. Been there, done it, don't live my mistakes.

[tinkinpink84]

Yeah im sure painting over wallpaper the wall paper could start peeling at any given moment makes for a messy looking wall!

[CW&M Mom]

Well if your going to paint it...technically.

scrub gross gooey stuff off

Take kilz paint...paint over 2 layers

then paint with whatever your gonna paint...but I suggest not a flat pain.

I am very annoyed personally at the former owners who pained right over the wall paper in our kitchen...but didn't kilz it first (or prime it even) so it's a mess. peeling off and they used flat paint so it's impossible to really clean.

[TiggerToo]

We use Eggshell when we painted over the wallpaper. Our entire house was one wallpaper when we moved in, so we had to cover quite a bit! Some of it we actually removed with wallremover because it was already falling off. But the rest of it we covered!

Well if your going to paint it...technically.

scrub gross gooey stuff off

Take kilz paint...paint over 2 layers

then paint with whatever your gonna paint...but I suggest not a flat pain.

I am very annoyed personally at the former owners who pained right over the wall paper in our kitchen...but didn't kilz it first (or prime it even) so it's a mess. peeling off and they used flat paint so it's impossible to really clean.

[Smee]

I would remove the paper except it's not like regular paper. It seems to have been maybe pressed on in some factory. There are some spots we'll be peeling because they are roughish, but those areas also need to be filled and sanded. There's going to be lots of sanding and priming. I currently have several painted squares in various colors on my walls to try to see how it's going to behave as well as trying on colors.

Magic Sponge works ok on everything except my kitchen walls, but I don't think I'd want to use it to tackle a larger project like whole wall cleaning. My kitchen walls have a texture with some sort of deep grain. I had to scrub at it with a brush. I didn't realize how grotty they were. I actually went to clean one greasy looking spot, and once I did, that spot gleamed in comparison to my other walls. Cleaning tip: Don't touch anything. If it's evenly dirty, it's much less noticeable. Apparently. Or if you need inspiration, thoroughly scrub one surface. Everything else will look dirty in comparison, and you'll have to finish the job. You could perform major surgery in my kitchen now! It's weird because I'm a stickler about sanitized counters, but my walls were so neglected. I just wonder if wall washing beyond the random swiping of noticeable spots is something most people routinely do and maybe I'm just a slob.

[tinkinpink84]

Walls usually end up getting forgottin in my house, Its on the list of things to do yes. But by the time every thing else is done yeah well that gets put on the backburner. I only ever will scrub at noticable dirty spots! I dont really regularly wipe down the walls maybe once a month if even that! The only walls that get cleaned alot more often are the ones going down the stairs. Kids seem to use the wall and not hand rail!