Removing Pen Art From Walls.

My children. They are artistes. My youngest child, especially, is a artiste with pen, and pencil, and paper, and walls.

I love most of the things in that sentence, can you pick the one I’m not crazy about? Betcha can. Mr Husband and I spent quite some time and $ repainting our living areas over summer. If only we had spent MORE time, we’d have finished. As it was, this particular wall has three coats of paint, and needed another to even it all up and cover the beige underneath. And then my youngest son drew ALL over it with pen. Biro pen. Ink.

 

I couldn’t scrub it off, no matter how I tried, so I just ignored it, until the lovely lady at the Resene shop in Feilding suggested hairspray.

Hairspray? I have some of that! A 10 year old bottle that I use maybe once a year. Heaps left, no worries.

Here is  a before photo of the patch of wall I was testing the hairspray  on:

The effect of the hairspray (after one spray, you have to move quite fast to mop up!)

And the aftermath.

So, yes, hairspray definitely works.  I’d spray it on, the rub it off with a clean cloth. But the ink ran, and you need a LOT of hairspray. It doesn’t damage the paint on the wall though, which is good. But I’m impatient, so I thought, well, what else could work? How about… nail polish remover!!

Test spot…

The nail polish remover…

Aftermath…

Gone!

 

OOOH now, that works, and it works quicker with less effort. I used cotton balls as the removal agent, I put some remover on the cotton balls then wiped it, gently and quickly, over the pen marks. And the pen marks came off immediately.

Some of the pen was embedded in the wall with the force of the artistic expression, so I scrubbed a bit harder on those. And the wall paint came off.

the yellow is the paint underneath the cream paint we put on this summer…

In some places the paint came off, and the pen remained. That was a bit annoying.

Whoooops.

However, it was significantly quicker and easier than hairspray, so I just kept going.

And the after!

I can paint over this, and it shouldn’t be visible. I know from experience that I’ve put 5 layers of paint over pen scribble before, and the scribble is still quite visible. I thought I was going to have to sand this whole wall back to Gib board and start again, so I’m happy with this alternative. It didn’t use much polish remover either!

Does anyone else have any tips for getting evil substances off or out of things (carpet, walls, curtains?) 🙂