Purging and Storing Leftover Paint

Do you have a pile of paint cans in your basement or garage that are left over after painting rooms in your house?   You may be keeping it for touch-ups or to use in other rooms or for other projects.  Even if you aren’t sure you’ll use it, you may find it difficult to get rid of it because paint isn’t cheap. 

But paint cans take up a lot of room! And if they aren’t very full then it really feels like a waste of space.

5 Tips to Help You Purge & Store Your Leftover Paint

1. Purge any cans that are rusty or more than a few years old. 
2. Be realistic about what you will actually use.  Unless you’re a frequent DIYer or big-time crafter, don’t keep a lot of paint “just in case” or for “someday”.  It’s just taking up space, which could be used for something else to help make the rest of your home less overwhelming. And in the meantime it may be deteriorating or changing colour slightly, so chances are you won’t use it anyway. If you don’t have projects in mind, then purge most of the leftover paint.
3. Choose a container size based on the amount of paint you are going to keep (small container for touch-ups, medium sized container for future projects).
4. Label every container with all the details from the original paint can that you may need to reference later.
5. Check your local waste collection guidelines for the proper disposal method of the empty cans in your area.  And enjoy your new less-cluttered space !

Decluttering and Organizing My Leftover Paint

I had been keeping our cans of leftover paint for years without even realizing how much they were starting to build up. Then I counted and it turns out we had 16 cans of leftover paint!

It was so messy and it was getting overwhelming. I needed a better organizational system for them.  

Six of the cans were nearly empty or they were getting rusty, so I purged them.  We had 2 unopened cans of paint that were left over when our basement was redone several years ago.  I kept those since the cans still seemed to be in good condition. 

So, that left 8 open cans of usable paint. What to do with them? I found some ideas online that showed people storing leftover paint in plastic containers or glass jars or new small paint cans. Any of those options sounded better than the big cans.

I decided to use mason jars. Here’s what they look like now:

So much better than before!  

Before I rinsed and recycled the empty paint cans, I noted all the key information and made labels.

There was very little paint in two of the cans so I used a couple of jam jars. I created a special label for the lids of these two jars that contains the information that was on the original labels since the sides of the jars were textured. 

Aren’t they cute?!

There’s plenty of paint in each of the jars to do touch-ups and even enough to use as accents on other items. But it takes up much less space!  

I store these 8 jars and the 2 new cans of paint in a small cupboard in our basement that was otherwise underutilized.

Here is the before and after:

Note: light can cause the paint to change colour over time, so if you’re storing your paint in clear jars or containers, you should store them in a dark place. Also, air can affect the paint quality, so try to fill the jars or containers as much as possible.

How do you store your leftover paint?  Have you decluttered your paint lately?  I’d love to hear your ideas.

If you need help decluttering or organizing, contact me for in-person services in the Mississauga area, or virtual services anywhere else.

Happy organizing!