Ask Apartment Apothecary – an easy way to touch up paint work

WARNING: This is NOT an aesthetically pleasing post. There is a whole lot of yellow and a plastic peanut butter jar features far too much!

I haven’t done an AAA for ages and I’ve got quite a few to catch up on. Today’s question came from Karen who posted a question on my Facebook wall about tips for keeping her walls white, after noticing that much of my flat is painted white.

I have to say, that before Jules and Otto moved into my flat the walls were as white as can be and the odd scuff mark was very rare. Today is a different story. Dog slobber, mud and general Jules mess has taken its toll on my white walls. I also have to take some blame as I am constantly nailing and screwing in pictures, hooks, mirrors, shelves and then moving them all around so there are plenty of holes that I constantly have to fill and paint over.

Obviously, cleaning is step one for cleaning off dirt and marks and these magic sponges that Claire introduced me to a while back are brilliant. However, more stubborn marks and filled in holes do require painting over. I have previously shared a tip to always keep a brush and a plastic jar filled with your wall paint under your sink so that you can easily whip it out and paint over marks or holes with ease.

I have now developed this idea to make it even easier to touch up your walls with no need for a brush (and the annoying cleaning of the brush bit).

1. Use a plastic jar to store your wall paint colour. Label it clearly with the room and paint colour/make. Peanut butter jars are perfect (don’t use a glass one as the lid will rust).

2. Cut a piece of sponge – I used a bog standard kitchen sponge – that will fit into the jar snugly otherwise the paint will drip down its sides and end up in the lid, rather than in the sponge. The sponge must be thicker than the height of the lid  and the thicker the better, actually. I think I’m going to add some height to mine as you don’t want the lid to come into contact with the wall when dabbing on paint. Stick the piece of sponge to the inside of the lid with glue.

3. Pop the lid on the jar, shake it up so the sponge absorbs the paint.

4. Dab it onto the mark or hole you want to touch up. Once you are done, screw the lid back on very tightly and store under the sink for the next time you need it.

The added bonus of using a sponge is the texture is more similar to a roller, which is what our walls were painted with. In the past, touching up with a brush has been quite obvious due to the stroke marks.

Hope this idea helps some of you. I don’t know if this type of thing is sold anywhere; if it’s not, I’m going to start mass marketing it 😉

Katy x