Use water bottles to store paint
One of the first things we did when we moved into our new home was paint. The old color scheme was more appropriate for a fast food restaurant than a living space.
Paint cans always seem to be left behind by previous owners and they tend to sit in a garage or basement for an eternity. So, when the previous owner asked if we would like her left over paint we told her, “no thanks,” and asked her to properly dispose of it.
What is one to do to with all the extra paint that is inevitably left over from one’s painting project? You can follow a few tips that we’ve listed in the past or check out Lowes’ tips for storage and disposal.
Another suggestion comes from Ron Hazelton, who suggests using water bottles for storage:
The key to paint storage is to minimize the amount of air in the container. So plastic water bottles of all different sizes are perfect for keeping leftover paint in good condition. Simply match the size of the bottle with the amount of leftover paint that you have.
Ron also suggests putting a couple of marbles in the bottles to make it easier to stir the paint (similar to a can of spray paint). I like the water bottle suggestion for getting rid of your mostly empty paint cans. It saves space and it will also save your paint.
Reader suggestion: Storing and disposing used paint
Reader Mike sent us the following tip that he adapted from an episode of TLC’s Clean Sweep:
Paint cans in my garage tend to reproduce and grow. Pretty quickly after various projects there is a collection of 1 gallon paint cans taking up huge amounts of space. When my wife and I went to finish painting a room, we discovered our less than half filled paint cans also thickened a little over time.
To put and end to this, I purchased a few 1 quart cans from the paint store for $1.88 a piece and poured the paint out of the gallon containers into these little guys. In the end, I wound up throwing away a very small amount of paint, but a very large amount of paint containers.
He added the following tip:
Paint in its liquid form is hazardous waste, however, as a solid it is safe to throw away. I combined all my left over paint into a single one gallon container, capped it, and saved it with the used lightbulbs for hazardous waste disposal. The rest of the [empty 1 gallon] cans were left outside in the sunlight to dry, then they were simply tossed.
Thank you, Mike, for the great tip!
