Can I "Touch-Up" a Painted Wall?

Have you ever endeavored to “touch up” a chipped or dirty part of a wall with fresh paint, but ended up making an even more noticeable blotch on the wall?

In all honesty, touching-up a wall rarely turns out as you would imagine it to: with unnoticeable edges that blend right into the original wall paint. On rare occasion, if you have the same can of paint you originally painted the wall with, you can touch-up a spot so that it’s fairly indistinct. However, often no matter how hard you try, you can’t entirely disguise a “touched-up” spot.

There are various reasons why simple "touch-ups" rarely work:

• The new paint is cleaner than the old paint.
• The old paint may be faded.
• There may be a sheen difference due to wear and tear on the original wall.
• The paint from the can may have aged, and/or may not match the wall texture when dry.

In order to truly successfully touch up a wall, paint the whole wall from corner to corner with the closest match you can find to the original room color.