How to Maintain Interior Paint in a High-Traffic Living Space this Holiday Season

The holidays can be hectic, especially if you’ve got a large family and/or plenty of friends. If it’s your turn to host the festivities this year, you’ll want to greet your guests with a spotless living space. Of course, keeping your home in such perfect condition is an uphill battle when you’ve got several people over. No matter what you do, your interior surfaces will be at some risk in the form of scuffs, stains, abrasions, and more. That said, you don’t have to simply accept it, either. There are a number of precautions you can take to maintain your home interior painting in your high-traffic living space this holiday season and beyond -- let’s go over them now.

How to Maintain Interior Paint This Holiday Season

Select a Durable Paint Finish from the Start

This advice might not be immediately relevant if you don’t plan on repainting your interior spaces any time soon. Still, it’s always good to remember the importance of choosing high-quality, durable interior house paint for your projects. Simply put, higher quality paint (when properly applied) will withstand a greater amount of wear and tear over time, retaining its appearance and integrity for many years to come with proper maintenance. As tempting as it might be to go for less expensive paint products, you must always keep the long-term costs of doing so in mind. Indeed, it often costs more, in the long run, to maintain and touch up low-quality paint than it does to invest in high-quality paint from the get-go.

Quality notwithstanding, you must also consider the paint’s finish. Paints with a flatter finish are somewhat less durable and more difficult to clean than those with a glossier finish. That said, high-gloss paints reveal more surface imperfections than their flatter counterparts. Therefore, it’s often best to strike a balance for high-traffic living spaces and go for a satin or semi-gloss paint finish. These finish options are durable and highly washable without overwhelming the eye.

Seal Your Surfaces with Transparent Protectors

If you’re happy with your painted walls as they currently are and they’re in decent condition, it’s hard to justify applying fresh paint. Fortunately, you don’t need to repaint your interior surfaces to provide them with fresh protection. A cursory online search of “clear wall protectors” will reveal countless transparent materials that can be placed over or sprayed/rolled onto your walls and other surfaces. These coverings offer an additional layer of protection without altering the appearance, color, or sheen of the painted surfaces underneath. When properly applied, no one will notice that these coverings are even there. Transparent protectors are often used in bathrooms and kitchens to prevent moisture intrusion, but they can also be useful in high-traffic living spaces to mitigate scuffs, abrasions, and discoloration.

Install or Enhance Baseboards and Interior Trim

See-through wall protectors aren’t the only buffers that protect your interior walls from damage and deterioration. Interior trim, such as baseboards, chair rails, and wall paneling aren’t just fantastic aesthetic additions to your living space -- they also act as covert shields to keep your painted walls safe and fresh. More specifically, baseboards prevent shoes from scuffing the lower portions of walls, chair rails (as their name implies) keep furniture from slamming into walls, and wall paneling (which comes in many forms) provides geometric protrusions that help keep hands, clothing, furniture, and other objects from making direct impact.

Limit the Amount of Sunlight that Enters Your Home

We don’t often associate the holiday season with sunlight, but the sun still burns bright during the winter whenever the clouds clear up. While it’s great to allow some natural light inside your living spaces, direct sunlight can cause your interior painted surfaces to fade over time. If you plan on opening up the shades this holiday season, be strategic and always know which way the sun is facing. Otherwise, keep those blinds shut during the sunniest days to prevent your paint from losing its color. Applying UV-resistant paint to your high-traffic living space is also a great way to mitigate the sun’s most negative effects on your interior.

Clean Walls Before and After the Holidays

Properly painted surfaces are protected from many threats, but they can still get dirty and dusty if neglected for too long. Hosting for the holidays is a great motivator for cleaning your painted interior surfaces, but engaging in this maintenance is about more than merely impressing your guests. Washing away the grime that naturally accumulates on your walls, ceiling, and other surfaces both restores the appearance of these features and helps prevent paint from slowly deteriorating. Plus, the cleaner your walls are for the holidays, the more careful your guests are likely to be when navigating your high-traffic living space. And when the festivities come to a close, it’s a good idea to clean those surfaces once more, especially if any noticeable imperfections are present. The sooner you wipe away scuffs and marks, the easier it will be to completely remove them.

Keep Your Interior Climate in Check

So far, we’ve discussed the threats of impact, moisture, and ultraviolet radiation on your interior paint job. But there’s another common concern that often goes overlooked -- internal climate (i.e., temperature and humidity). While most paints can withstand a wide range of temperatures after fully drying, extreme temperatures and sudden changes in temperature can lead to various paint problems, including chipping, peeling, flaking, bubbling, and more. The same goes for humidity -- rooms that are too dry or too damp can wreak havoc on interior paint, especially if these conditions are left unchecked. And considering how cold it can get outside during the holiday season, you’ll need to pay extra close attention to your thermostat and interior humidity levels if you want your paint to remain firm. Additionally, make sure your home has adequate ventilation.

Don’t Throw Away that Leftover Paint

Whenever embarking on a painting project, it’s also advised to save and properly store any paint that you didn’t use. Storing your leftover paint is practical for two key reasons: 1) doing so allows you to quickly reference the exact paint brand, color, and finish you used on a given surface (helpful if you’re not sure how to select interior paint colors in the future), and 2) it provides you with extra materials to perform necessary touch-ups when the time comes. This way, if your surfaces undergo some damage during the holidays, you can quickly amend the issue in time for the new year. Read our blog “The Best Way to Store Your Paint and Tools” for more information on proper paint and tool storage.

Consult Professional Home Interior Painters

If you’re looking for more help and advice regarding maintaining the interior paint in your high-traffic living space or anywhere else, Nash Painting is your go-to provider in Nashville, Brentwood, and Franklin, TN. In addition to our exterior and interior painting services, we offer color consultations, wallpaper removal, surface preparation, pressure washing, and so much more. To learn more about us, our services, and our values, call us at 615-829-6858 today!