Today I’m sharing a better way to store leftover house paint! Since we moved in, we have had an entire shelf full of old paint in our garage. Even before we moved in, the previous owners had left cans of paint behind. On one hand, it was nice because it helped us to know the paint colors used in our house (though it was a guessing game because they weren’t labeled with the room), but on the other hand, it took up a lot of space. Since we recently had a lot of painting done throughout our first floor (our island, foyer, living room and kitchen), we had even more leftover paint to store. I decided to finally do something different.
This is a super simple and inexpensive way to store your paint and it will take up SO much less room in your home. Here is what I did…
Supplies:
- Leftover paint
- Wide mouth mason jars
- Funnel
- Label maker (optional)
- A drop cloth or something to cover your work surface
- Paper towels (in case of a mess)
Process
- Prepare your work surface by putting down a drop cloth (or a garbage bag would work).
- Open the first can of paint and pour into the mason jar using the funnel. I recommend going slowly so you don’t overflow the mason jar. Depending on how much paint is left over, you may need more than one mason jar per can of paint. Screw the lid on tightly to avoid spills!
- Take a picture of the old paint can and/or lid to ensure you know the base paint that you used. You can save these photos to a folder on your phone or input this information into a spreadsheet. Another option would be to let the paint on the underside of the lid dry and keep the lids!
- Use a label maker (or a sharpie) to note the brand, color and sheen of the paint as well as where in your house the paint was used. For example, the paint we used on our island is labeled “SW Shade-Grown, Semi-Gloss, Kitchen Island”. You can also add more details on the base paint here if you don’t want to keep track of the images or a spreadsheet as mentioned in the last step.
- Repeat these steps for any paint to want to store, and put them in a cool, dry place in your home!
- Pro tip: Paint should not be exposed to the extreme temperatures so the garage is not the best place to store it (especially if you live in a climate with big temperature swings).
This new way to store leftover house paint has been a huge game changer for me and I hope it can help you too!
