Our Attempt to Keep our (Flat Paint) Walls Clean of Grimy Fingerprints

Earlier this year I decided, after much conversation with Dee and other friends, to move our dining table out of the kitchen and into the living room.  It opened up the space in our kitchen so much and didn’t take away that much living space.  I love it!  However, we moved the piece of furniture that attracts and creates the most mess into the one room in my house that has flat paint on the walls.  And that along with two very messy eaters has created a very grimy wall.  It looked something like this.

Aside from the unhappy and super messy little boy, can you see those walls?  Yep, that’s where the twins like to wipe their hands and bang their forks and spoons.  I have wiped those walls down so many times just to leave the greasy spots and a little less paint every time.  So I decided to paint the walls around the table.  And after consulting with my brother, Chris, the ex-painter, I learned how to paint just the bottom half of the wall and “feather” it in with a roller without having to paint the whole wall up to the 2-story ceiling.  That part worked like a charm.

Then, in an attempt to keep the fresh paint clean, I did two things:

1.  Moved the twins away from the walls, switching the seating arrangement from this:

To this:

2.  Then I applied a few coats of spray starch to the walls.  Supposedly, that will create somewhat of a barrier for stains and make it a little easier to clean.  We’ll see.

So far.  So good.  We’ll see how it holds up over the next few months.

How do you wash dirty walls?