nsbr: white doors and cabinets & grubby fingered kids :/

[SarahMD]

HELP! I have white cabinets and white doors and trim... it does NOT hide the dirt from my grubby fingered kids. i wipe them down and it doesn't help a whole lot. i have to repaint every other week almost! I hate it!

what colors are your doors and trims? seriously thinking its time to buy new interior doors but i don't wanna!!! is there a color i could use instead? like dark brown maybe? idk!!!!

i've tried magic erasers, bleach cleaner, scrubbies.. (i'm in a rental - so there is actually about 22 layers of paint and it doesn't look pretty after i scrub!

[tsbegley]

You're seriously repainting it that frequently? That seems.....not efficient. LOL

Have you tried Bar Keeper's Friend? It's a great cleaner for white counters, etc. Good luck! It sounds frustrating!

[origami]

Originally Posted by SarahMD

HELP! I have white cabinets and white doors and trim... it does NOT hide the dirt from my grubby fingered kids. i wipe them down and it doesn't help a whole lot. i have to repaint every other week almost! I hate it!

what colors are your doors and trims? seriously thinking its time to buy new interior doors but i don't wanna!!! is there a color i could use instead? like dark brown maybe? idk!!!!

i've tried magic erasers, bleach cleaner, scrubbies.. (i'm in a rental - so there is actually about 22 layers of paint and it doesn't look pretty after i scrub!

What kind of paint are you using to repaint? Maybe a semi-gloss eggshell, suggests my DH.

[Txcorey]

Do you have knobs on your cabinets? Maybe that would help if you don't. My pantry door will occasionally get a little grubby, but I wipe it down and it's fine. It is a glossier type paint.

[SarahMD]

my landlord only gets me flat i'll try eggshell.........

[Txcorey]

You definitely need a glossy paint on trim and doors.

[BrattyMeg]

1/2 vinegar 1/2 water might help too. If it's real bad just spray vinegar directly on there first.

I've started using vinegar for so much of my cleaning lately. Really seems to work great.

You could also use like 1/3 liquid dish detergent to 2/3 water and scrub them

[Nettio]

If it's flat paint, that's a huge part of your problem. We have flat walls but glossier white trim in our rental and the trim is easy to wipe down but trying to get anything off the flat walls is much tougher.

I'm not sure whether you have control over the paint used at all but Sherwin-Williams has a line of paint called Duration Home which is designed to be wipeable no matter what sheen it is. We've used it quite a few times and works really well. It's not cheap but they offer a lot of sales throughout the year if you needed to buy it yourself.

[SarahMD]

Originally Posted by Nettio

I'm not sure whether you have control over the paint used at all but Sherwin-Williams has a line of paint called Duration Home which is designed to be wipeable no matter what sheen it is. We've used it quite a few times and works really well. It's not cheap but they offer a lot of sales throughout the year if you needed to buy it yourself.

hmm. maybe i'll do that for doors and such. my landlord buys cheap flat paint and with chips and hand prints and - ew what is that? situations it's easy to just touch up the walls every other month or so. he lets me pick my colors - so if i redo doors and cabinets i'll probably have to buy my own... but the gallon every so often for the walls he doesn't mind.

[Sherri Tierney]

Steam cleaner! I bought a Wagner steam cleaner and I have gotten stuff clean that NEVER would have came clean before. It is gentle since there are no chemicals, just blasts of steam. I love it! Places that I ordinarily would have just painted over to freshen them up thanks to the kids, I just shot with steam and voila, the gunk rolled right off, I wiped it with a cloth and it was gone.

The steam cleaner works great on carpets too. I had some stubborn spots that my carpet shampooer wouldn't remove, the steamer took them right out.

[Sarah8914]

Oh yes, it's totally the flat paint!!!! We have parts where the previous owners "touched up" with flat paint and it never comes clean ever! I would try and get a semi-gloss for the trim, doors and cabinets. That will make a HUGE difference!