Easy Paint Touch Ups to Make Your Home Look New

Updated: July 2025

Your home has been through a lot. Whether it’s the hustle and bustle of everyday life, hosting a holiday party, or your children deciding your walls are the perfect canvas for their art time, your home is going to take a few for the team. You have probably noticed little damages, scratches, and marks to your walls, baseboards, cabinets, and furniture but thought little of it. These little things add up and can take a toll on your home’s overall aesthetic making it look less new. You may be looking around and noticing all the imperfections and wondering if your home is too worse for wear. But don’t give up hope so fast! Luckily, there are easy ways to renew the areas in your home that are a little rough around the edges. Get your paintbrush out and follow our tips for easy paint touch-ups, especially when you are looking to sell your home!

Ten Top Painting Tips

1. 1. The exterior of your home – or “curb appeal” as it is known in the real estate world – should be your priority. You want the outside of your property to entice potential buyers and create a great first impression of your home. When potential buyers have a good impression before they enter your home, selling becomes a much easier task.
   2. Once buyers enter your home, they will begin to imagine hosting family and friends. This stage of the journey begins in the entry. You want your prospective buyers to feel that your entryway is inviting. We recommending touching up your paintwork, preferably with neutral colors that will maximize the potential for sale.
   3. The kitchen and bathroom are considered the heart of the home by the majority of homeowners. While prospective buyers will most certainly scrutinize every aspect of your home, these two rooms can make or break a sale. A mix of traditional and contemporary colors will increase the appeal of your kitchen and bathroom, making your home more attractive to prospective buyers.
   4. If your kitchen is small, you may want to consider painting it in light colors. By using lighter colors, you can increase the perceived size of the kitchen space. Make sure that your kitchen worktops, appliances, walls and floors are clean and free of stains. You want your kitchen to sparkle and shine when potential buyers start flooding in.
   5. The view of the outside from inside a home is just as important as curb appeal to prospective clients. Don’t be surprised if many potential buyers decide to admire the view from each room. If a potential buyer stops and leans on a windowsill to look outside, you do not want them to come away with a hand covered in dirt and grime. Make sure that every windowsill is not only cleaned, but also primed and painted. You will also need to sand windowsills where needed.
   6. Buyers search for every little imperfection when viewing a home. Woodwork is one element in a home that can turn buyers off for the most trivial reasons. Make sure to pay close attention to your woodwork and correct any defects such as chipped paint. Pristine woodwork increases the appeal of a home because prospective buyers know they won’t have much work to do when they move in.
   7. Areas of your home that receive the most footfall will require special attention when it comes to paintwork. Dirty hands and the natural oils in our skin are notorious for causing smudged paintwork in commonly used rooms. Touch up your door frames, window frames, around electric sockets and switches, and any other areas that make a house a home.
   8. The same principle applies to any cabinet doors as they will certainly attract attention from potential buyers when they view your home. Grubby fingerprints on your cabinet doors are not an attractive look. Make sure that cabinets are washed down and touch up cabinets with paint if it is needed. If you don’t, your cabinets will stick out like a sore thumb in an otherwise pristine room.
   9. Your ceilings are vulnerable to staining from smoking, steam, grease and other pollutants that enter the home. The Arizona sun is also responsible for a large amount of the damage that ceiling paintwork suffers. A dirty or faded ceiling suffocates a room, so give your ceilings a fresh coat of paint to bring some life back to your rooms.
   10. Go over every inch of your paintwork looking for defects. It is a good idea to bring in friends or family to help identify imperfections. Homeowners are often biased in their own homes and fail to see defects that a prospective buyer will instantly notice. At the Arizona Painting Company, we take great pride in ensuring paintwork is perfect. For more advice on touch-ups to help you sell your home, call the Arizona Painting Company today.

What Does Preparation Look Like For Touch Up Painting?

Identify the Areas in Need of a Touch Up

Certain areas of your home need a little more TLC than others depending on use and abuse. Do a walkthrough of your home and look carefully for marks on the walls, scuffs marks on the baseboards, chips on the kitchen cabinets, and imperfections on the doors. Also, look for more glaring instances of damage such as crayon masterpieces on the walls or cat scratches on the furniture. As you note these minor issues, make a list of each item that needs to be addressed. Now that you have identified everything that needs freshening up, it is time to get to work.

Try to Clean the Marks First

Not every mark or scuff on the wall requires you to run to the garage and dig out the paint cans and roller. Before painting over the scuffs and marks, see if you can first remove the damage by wiping them away with a wet cloth or wipe. Depending on the finish used for the painting project, your walls or surface may be easier to clean than you had originally anticipated. Some marks will come off easily and the beautiful aesthetic of that surface will immediately be restored. If the imperfections don’t come off with simple cleaning tactics then consider concealing them with a touchup layer of paint.

Selecting the Correct Coverup Color

One of the biggest and most common mistakes when it comes to retouching paint projects is selecting a different shade than the original paint. This could make the situation worse by painting over an imperfection with mismatched paint. The easiest way to avoid this nightmare is to use the original paint color and use the same tool used to put down the original paint coat. If a roller was used, then use that for the touch-up. The same goes for paintbrush, sprayer, and so on. This will help the paint blend as nicely as possible. Another trick is to dilute the paint slightly with water for a seamless blend. This will make the touch up less noticeable since thinner paint looks nicer than a patch of thick paint. Also, make sure to stir the paint thoroughly especially if it has been sitting in the garage or basement for a long period of time. You want the paint to be as smooth as possible for a nice, clean look once it dries.

Consider Hiring an Expert

Not all damage to your home can easily be retouched and some fixes call for an entirely new coat of paint. Luckily, you can hire an expert team of color consultants and painters to retouch or redo your paint project. If you need some help choosing which paint color to go with or which techniques to use, our expert color consultants at Arizona Painting Company can help! Our extensive experience qualifies us to pick the perfect color and paint finish for any project. Contact us today.