Is magnolia pretty standard?? Need to paint rental walls

[cherrytreeblossom]

We are moving out of our rented house and Im in the process of making sure its ready to move out of and get our deposit back.

The paintwork is grubby in areas and has some odd places Id like to touch up over marks.

The entire house is painted magnolia, can I just buy a pot of magnolia and go for it or will it be a disaster??

Different brands of Magnolia will differ in shade. I think you will probably have to paint entire walls rather than just cover the marks.

I tried to touch up our hallway with the exact paint that was used and now have a lovely patchy wall.

Can you ask the landlord which shade they used and then just colour match it? Wear and tear is expected. How long have you lived there? Have you tried Magic Sponges, they are really good at getting marks off painted walls.

If you do decide to repaint make sure you do a good job as if it's not professional the landlord could still ask for a deduction.

A friend of ours went through an Annie Sloan shabby chic phase decorating her rental flat. It honestly looked dreadful (like a monkey had started painting and then got distracted by a banana half way through...), but well, it did look shabby.

She actually told the landlord that she had 'added value' to the flat and was upset when the half painted patchy walls & skirts were pointed out. Luckily for her the landlord was planning on repainting the house anyway so it didn't affect the deposit (unlike the massive picture hook holes in the walls...!)

I think scuff marks should come under general wear and tear... especially if you've been there for a while? I hope so for your sake!

I have just ruined our stairs/hall/landing by touching up brilliant white matt paint with brilliant white matt paint. The whole thing will have to be redone. I had no idea that colours aren't standard.

Do not touch up. Rarely works. Baby wipes pretty good. If still looks crap, do ask landlord re colour. If nothing else shows you care.

HG mould spray which I suspect is just bleach seems to do an amazing job. Even considered not painting afterwards.

Hi thanks for responses - seems the "don't touch up" messages are spot on - I got some magnolia and tested it on a mark in the kitchen and it sticks out like a sore thumb!

Im concerned that when we fill and sand the picture hook holes, we need to pain them with something?

Hi cherrytreeblossom, how long have you been a tenant? As a few of us have said before reasonable 'wear and tear' is allowed.

Once you've repaired picture hook holes they should be painted over. But again, make sure it's a good job because if it isn't the landlord could. rightly make deductions if they need to do it again and same with the paintwork.

We've been here 18 months.

The paintwork and carpets weren't great when we moved in, but 18 months additional wear and its feeling grubby and i don't want to hand it back over like this.

I suppose you have just have to have an honest discussion with your landlord (if you can) and ask whether he was going to repaint anyway? It may have been a good while since it was last done if not done between you and previous tenants.

Good luck!

In our last rented house (after being careful tenants, no children, there for 12 months) I panicked about the state of the walls and repainted an entire room and skirting boards. They were magnolia and matching just didn't work so had to go the whole hog.

I then looked back at the moving in pictures and inventory and realised that actually they were a state before we moved in, so we'd massively upgraded. After than I decided to just wash down the other walls- still a huge improvement on what they had been!

Unless you've had kids drawing on the walls, and with my benefit of hindsight, I'd say wash any bad marks but don't fret. I did it more as a gesture of goodwill, and the cheeky poos still tried to claim on our deposit for cutting back a hedge (claimed it hadn't been like that when we moved in- until we showed picture evidence and pointed out that actually the whole place was in a significantly better state than when we moved in!)

Magic erasers are pretty good. Use with care.

Touching up might work but magnolia varies from brand to brand and new paint on top of paint that's been there a while will mean patches, even with the same paint.

If you were going to repaint, you would need to patch any holes from nails and wash the walls with sugar soap. Wouldn't bother myself, unless the wear and tear looked like there had been a food fight in there.