Getting rid of dried up, old paint stains from your carpet is easier than you think. Even paint stains that are over a year old can be easily removed with the right products and a little elbow grease.
Recently my husband spilled a whole gallon of light, almost white, blue paint in the middle of my carpeted hallway. He freaked, I freaked and together we freaked completely. Here are 3 methods I used to get rid of the paint stain. All three methods worked perfectly.
The Paint Thinner Method
Using paint thinner to clean my carpets was the method I was most hesitant to try and the hardest to accomplish but it does work.
The sales clerk at the paint department of Orchard Hardware warned me that using paint thinner on my carpet could ruin the matting underneath, smell bad and possibly stain the carpet further. He told me to use it in moderation after being diluted with warm water.
When I first attempted to clean the paint from the carpet with diluted thinner I had very little success. So I gave straight paint thinner a go.
When I poured straight paint thinner on my carpet it did indeed smell pretty bad. To top it off it didn’t actually remove the paint. What it did do is loosen the paint so that when I dabbed and scrubbed at the spot it smeared the paint around.
Overall I determined that this method would be best suited for removing small spots or splatters of paint rather than entire gigantic spills.
The “Goo Gone” Method
Goo Gone is a product sold at most craft stores and hardware stores. It is a strong chemical designed to clean icky, sticky, gooey, gross spots out of floors, furniture, fabrics and surfaces. And it does.
After experiementing with paint thinner I decided to test a spot of my enormous spill by pouring Goo Gone to one of the edges of the spill.
I scrubbed and noticed the paint began to lift. A little. I scrubbed some more and saw a little more paint lift.
After an hour of scrubbing the same small test spot I threw in the towel and realized that it would take me forever to get rid of a gallon of paint on my carpet with Goo Gone.
The Rubbing Alcohol Method
Rubbing alcohol removed the stain from my carpet the easiest and fastest. Again I chose one of the edges of the paint spill as a test spot and doused it in rubbing alcohol.
I dabbed away at the stain and voila: the paint came right up.
So I doused and dabbed again. Once more it lifted easily.
In the end I was able to completely remove a gallon of paint from my carpet by pouring rubbing alcohol on it and dabbing. When all that was left was a little discoloration I poured more alcohol on the carpet and scrubbed with a fresh new cloth.
You would never know now that I just had a gallon of paint spilled on my carpet. There is absolutely no stain left behind and it only took about half an hour. It did smell a little bit but not too much. It gave my hallway a sanitized hospital smell for a few hours.
I liked the ease of this method so much I went around and cleaned up the rest of the tiny splatters and droplets with rubbing alcohol.
The next time you spill paint on your carpet don’t despair. Print out this article and try one of these methods. I guarantee you that you won’t have to buy new carpet.
