How To Clean White Walls: Tricks to Make Your Walls Look Spotless
Keep your white walls looking bright and beautiful
White walls offer the perfect backdrop for a bright and modern space, but there’s a catch: They showcase dirt, dust, and stains like no other. That’s why it’s essential to learn how to clean white walls—they’re tough to clean, especially when they’re up against adversaries like paws, fingerprints, and little hands armed with art supplies.
If you’ve been struggling to restore your white walls to their former glory, there’s a few tricks to achieving the spotless look you’re after. Here’s how to clean white walls and keep them looking pristine.
Why Do My White Walls Look Dirty?
The fresh, clean look of your white walls is likely what attracted you to the color in the first place, or maybe you’re a renter making the best of a thick coating of white paint. Either way, you’ve probably noticed that it’s more of a pain to clean your walls when they’re white than their colorful counterparts.
Despite the look, though, white walls gather the same amount of dirt, but colorful walls offer much better camouflage. They tend to dull with dust rather than displaying dirty specks, and you may not see spots and stains as easily against a darker background. They’re still getting as dirty as any other type of wall would, but it’s much easier to notice.
How to Clean White Walls
If the spots, stains, and dirt are sticking out like a sore thumb on your white walls, you can get them to look good as new. Here’s how to clean white walls and conquer any lingering stains.
Wash White Walls With Dish Soap
Dust the entire surface using a duster or microfiber cloth. Don’t forget about cleaning your baseboards to achieve that perfect floor-to-ceiling sparkle.
Fill a bucket with warm water and a generous dollop of dish soap.
Fill a second bucket with clean, warm water for rinsing.
Dip a non-abrasive sponge or microfiber cloth in the water and wring it out completely.
Grab your sponge or cloth and gently scrub your walls in circular motions.
Once you’ve covered an area of the wall, dip a clean cloth into your rinse bucket and give the walls a wipe-down to remove lingering dirt and suds.
Dump and refill the water in your rinse bucket often to ensure you’re rinsing with clean water.
Clean White Walls With Vinegar
To keep your white walls bright and beautiful, you can also use vinegar to clean them. You can follow the above method, but instead of filling your cleaning bucket with soapy water, swap it out for one cup of vinegar diluted in one gallon of water.
Remove Stains From White Walls With a Melamine Sponge
When your basic method for cleaning white walls isn’t cutting it against stubborn stains, you can try giving it a little extra elbow grease with the soapy water, or you can opt for a melamine sponge. This type of sponge is durable, soft, and perfect for removing ink, grease, and marker stains from your walls.
To remove wall stains, dip the melamine sponge in a small amount of water, and then rub gently on the stain with a circular motion. If you’re cleaning walls with eggshell or gloss paint, take care not to scrub too hard and use caution with a melamine sponge, as it could lift the paint or damage the finish.
Remove Stains From White Walls With Baking Soda
If your melamine sponge is struggling to remove a stubborn stain from your wall, don’t panic. Another stain-removing method is to add a small amount of water to baking soda until it forms a paste. Then, dip your sponge or cloth in and scrub in small circles until the stain lifts. The gentle, natural abrasiveness of the sponge will usually take care of any leftover stains.
Tips for Keeping Your White Walls Clean
Now that you’ve cleaned your white walls to perfection, let’s review some tips to keep them that way.
Keep melamine sponges handy to spot-clean scuffs, splatters, crayon marks, and other everyday messes as they happen.
Maintain a house cleaning checklist to keep track of cleaning your walls (and tackling your other household chores, too).
Fill a spray bottle with vinegar and use it to spruce up your white walls in between cleanings (Pro tip: You can also use vinegar to clean your mirrors and glass, too).
Dust your walls every week to keep the buildup from dulling their sheen.
DIY vs. Hiring a Pro
Learning how to clean white walls is one thing; keeping up with it is far more difficult. If you’re having trouble maintaining your white walls, you don’t have to go it alone. Professional wall cleaning costs between $170 and $470 on average. While you’re at it, you can also discuss other home cleaning packages with your pro to get even more chores off your plate. Get in touch with a local house cleaner to learn more about your options.
Frequently Asked Questions
For most households, washing your walls at least twice a year will help them stay clean and beautiful. For homes with children or pets, monitor your walls weekly and clean them more often as needed. If you keep up with it, you’ll have a much easier time with every cleaning.
White walls are the toughest color to keep clean and maintain, as they’re extremely unforgiving when it comes to dirt, splatters, dust, and smudges. Still, many people look past their high-maintenance requirements because they lighten and modernize a space beautifully. If you’re opting for white walls, it’s especially important to keep up with regular cleanings, so they stay pristine.
Avoid using abrasive cleaning tools, as these can damage your paint and leave marks behind. It’s also wise to avoid dyed sponges as fabrics, which may deposit some of their color as you clean. Lastly, as you're cleaning, be sure to swap out your water often so you don’t have any lingering marks or dullness from dirty water.
