Paint drips on the baseboard have a way of ruining your perfect painting. While you can easily remove drips when wet, sometimes you get carried away and allow them to dry up, making removing paint drips problematic.
Furthermore, dried paints on baseboards are catchy to the eyes and easily noticeable. Hence it is advisable to remove dried paint off baseboards.
In most cases, paint drips on baseboards are unavoidable no matter how careful you try to do your job, and paint drips have a way of standing out from the rest of the surrounding coverings around the room.
Removing dried paint is possible, but you must be careful not to cause damage to the painting in the process. Therefore, how do you get dried paint off baseboards?
You will use chemical paint strippers or other paint removers to get dried paint off the baseboard. First, gently scrape up the dried paint; if that doesn’t work, use a wet rag or a cleanser over the surface. Also, apply heat to the dried paint to soften the paint, which will enable you to scrape the dried paint off.
How To Get Dried Paint Off Wood Baseboards?
Baseboards complete the decoration of your room and make them more appealing to the eyes.
However, dried paint drips, if allowed, will make your room appear filthy and render your painting unprofessional.
The various methods to get dried paint off wood baseboards depend on the paint type. But you can remove latex and oil-based paints from baseboards with the proper technique.
When dealing with latex, rub the affected surface with a damp rag, a cleaning solvent, or denatured alcohol.
You must be careful not to over-apply the denatured alcohol so as not to damage the wooden baseboard. Ordinarily, denatured alcohol works fine in removing dried paint off Woods.
After application of the chemical solvent, all you have to do is gently scrape dried paint off the baseboard.
If, after applying denatured alcohol on the wooden baseboard, the dried paint does not dissolve, then you are probably dealing with an oil-based paint.
To remove oil-based dried paint off the wooden baseboard, carefully grit the affected surface of the baseboard with sandpaper and gently wipe off the surface with a chemical paint stripper.
This ensures that you don’t harm the wood with an excess of the chemical.
How To Get Dried Paint Off White Baseboards?
Paint splatters will always make their way to your baseboards, meaning it is almost impossible to have a perfect painting without having to deal with paint drips.
Removing dried paint drips requires more effort than when drips are still fresh. Regardless you don’t want dried paint drips to wreck the overall impression of your white baseboards.
If you don’t want to remove the white baseboard from the wall before applying any paint removals, you will need masking tape to cover your newly painted walls.
To remove dried paint from a white baseboard, apply a paint removal over the paint drips and give it time to settle in, depending on the quantity of dried paint on your baseboard.
Clean up the surfaces of your baseboard and allow the paint removal to dry up. One thing you must put into consideration is to use a chemical paint stripper that suits your kind of baseboard to avoid damaging the baseboard in the process.
After your baseboard must have dried up, you will still notice a tint of the color on the baseboard, all you have to do is to sand the baseboard, and you will get the original look of your baseboard.
If removing dried paint from your baseboard will be a big task to deal with, then you must ensure to cover up your baseboards before you start the application of paints on your wall.
While masking tapes will serve this purpose, it will be an expensive and stressful procedure since you will need a lot of masking tape to cover the whole extent of your baseboards.
How To Get Dried Paint Off Stained Baseboards?
Baseboards are decorative molding that covers joints between the wall surface and the floor.
Often, paint drips leaves off stains on the baseboard, making them appear messy and unattractive.
As such, you must devise a means to remove dried paint from your stained baseboards and make them look appealing to the eyes again.
There are many ways to remove dried paint from stained baseboards; you must first decide on the method that will suit the stains on your baseboard.
A putty knife can strip the dried paint and drip it off your baseboard. Carefully scrape the knife against the baseboard, ensuring the knife does not cut deep into the baseboard to avoid causing any damage to your baseboard.
After carefully scraping with a putty knife, you can use a good-quality chemical paint stripper to finish the work.
In a situation where there are scratches from the dried paint removal process, you should retouch the baseboard with new paint to match the previous work of painting work done.
And make sure you allow the paint to dry before touching the baseboard.
Best Method To Get Dried Paint Off Baseboards
Removing dried paint off stained baseboards can be challenging when you are not knowledgeable about the proper solvents or cleaning agents.
Knowing the most appropriate paint removal to remove dried paint off baseboards is crucial as you don’t want to damage your fine painting or the baseboard while trying to remove dried paint.
The most suitable method to get dried paint off the baseboard depends on the paint stain type and the amount of paint on the baseboard.
A simple application of warm water and soap on latex can clean dried paint off the baseboards.
When dealing with oil-based paints, you must put in extra work to get the job done. Nonetheless, the various methods work perfectly in removing dried paint off baseboards when properly applied.
Using chemical paint strippers works perfectly in removing dried paint from any baseboard.
And the most common paint strippers are methylene chloride, acetone, toluene, methanol, sodium hydroxide, and ammonia.
One thing you must remember when using chemical paint strippers is always to apply a moderate quantity.
And this is, so you don’t cause harm to your baseboard and the original paint applied to the baseboard.
What Removes Paint From A Baseboard?
There are many chemicals designed to remove paint from a baseboard. However, aside from using chemicals to remove paint from the baseboard, other mechanical methods are available to help you remove paint drips from your baseboard.
While others prefer chemical paint removals, some people go with paint strippers, and it all boils down to which method works better for you, although all methods come with their pros and cons.
You can use paint strippers, chemical paint removals, a stream of pressurized water, paint eaters, hand or electronic sanders, traditional heat guns, and handheld steamers to remove paint from baseboards.
Also, you can use speed heaters to strip paint off baseboards. A speed heater is more effective than heat because of the lower temperature it requires.
Speedheaters uses infrared light technology to build heat, which helps soften paints on your baseboard so you can scrape the paint away with standard scraping tools.
If the area of the baseboard stained with paint drips is significant, then a speed heater is recommended.
Because of the speed level, the cleanliness with which speed heaters deliver work, and the safety when using speed heaters to remove paint from baseboards.
When choosing a paint removal, it is essential to be cautious about the problems arising when you don’t apply the method effectively. Each method comes with advantages and disadvantages.
While you can easily remove dried paint from the baseboard yourself, in a situation where you can not get the work done, do not hesitate to call an expert for help.
This will go a long way to avoiding more damage to your baseboard. The table below shows the pros and cons of using chemical paint removals.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Chemical paint removals are faster. | They may damage underlying layers when not correctly used. |
| They are effective at removing multiple paint layers. | Chemicals are corrosive and will cause burns if accidents happen. |
| They are suitable for oil-based paints. | They are expensive. |
| They are suitable for larger areas. | They produce fumes and will cause harm if you breathe them. |
Final Thoughts
It is almost impossible to avoid paint drips on your baseboard while painting, and allowing paint drips to dry up on your baseboard will leave them messy.
The good news is that there are various ways by which you can remove dried paint from baseboards, such as using paint strippers, chemical paint removers, or cleaning dried paint with soap and water.
