How much leftover paint/stain do you currently have stashed in your garage/basement?

I asked myself this very question yesterday afternoon.

Every single one. Except the one I need now

Probably 10 gallons. Wife won't let me throw it away because matching colors is difficult or some sh*t. We live in a 1000 sf house so it's not exactly a lot to paint but a 10x10 bedroom takes her about 3 business days to paint.

I use food jars to keep touchup paint and stain for future needs. Most of the cans get dried and discarded.The key is to write the codes and what it was used for so you do not forget. Wet paint and dry paint do not look the same. Learned this by experience.

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If you have opened paint cans then you don't really want to use anything over a year old.

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I don't think she ever intends to use it. More about the proper color.

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I don't think she ever intends to use it. More about the proper color.

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You can then tell her that most companies change their paint code every year or so so a paint color from 5+ years ago won't match the new color. A wall sample will always be your best bet.

I'm just trying to give you legitimate reasons to clear your garage out

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Just did this last week. Bought a bunch if paint hardener from home depot and put it all in the trash

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Damn! Didn’t know this was a thing. I’ll be heading to Home Depot tomorrow.

:hattip:

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My wife claims we will eventually need it.

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Same story at my house. Paint has probably dried up solid years ago.

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You can then tell her that most companies change their paint code every year or so so a paint color from 5+ years ago won't match the new color. A wall sample will always be your best bet.

I'm just trying to give you legitimate reasons to clear your garage out

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I realize that this is written in jest.

My present house was built in 1993 by a Type A master craftsman for a successful engineer.

The As-Built materials for the house I have document all the paint codes, appliances, flooring, interior and exterior lighting fixtures, exterior fountains and accent lighting, structural drawings, windows & doors specifications and receipts, roofing material data, dray tickets for the concrete to do the foundation and the walks/drives. Also landscape drawings and receipts.

Long windup to say that paint codes are durable. Benjamin Moore’s anyway.

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I realize that this is written in jest.

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Slightly, yes. But also true.

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The As-Built materials for the house I have document all the paint codes

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Long windup to say that paint codes are durable. Benjamin Moore’s anyway

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Every can of paint has a paint code on it, but that doesn't mean that that colors paint code stays the same. We built my office and then a year and a half later we built our shop. I told SW the color to match it and when we put on some paint on the shop it was quite different. So I took them an old 5 gallon bucket from my office and they said the paint code had changed twice in that time frame for that color. We had to use a wall sample, we couldn't even plug in the old code.

For work we just use the digital color reader now and it's pretty fool proof.