Isn’t this a lovely color? I should hope so, since it’s been in my hair a lot this week! I decided on a spur-of-the-moment home improvement project last week, finally decorating our extra room in the basement, and I needed a can of paint, but I didn’t want to pay much for it. What to do?
When you’re looking for low-cost paint, check the “Oops Paint” section at your local Home Depot, Lowe’s, or paint store. Most of the cans are unopened, cans that either were not picked up after they were ordered or were returned. After sorting through the usual pukey-green, dark brown, and odd pink colors, I found this fabulous blue for my big project this week.
I have gotten free paint several times from Freecycle. Sometimes people are cleaning out their basements and garages and give away partial or full cans. Last year I snagged two full cans of a lovely wheat color, which I used to paint my basement hallways.
A couple of things to think about when using free or low-cost paint:
- Be sure you match the amount of paint to your project. Because there was only one can of this blue, I was lucky that it was exactly enough to do one coat with leftovers for touch-ups. If you get small cans or partial cans from Freecycle, use them to paint furniture, an accent wall, or another small project.
- Check the finish and use the right one for the job. After I found my blue “Oops Paint” at Home Depot, I took it up to the counter to ask a bunch of questions. I wanted to be sure it would work for my needs. It’s not worth saving money on the paint if you end up with problems later.
For even more Works for Me Wednesday tips, check out Rocks in my Dryer.
This is a great tip! I do this all of the time.
One time I was at the paint counter talking about the oops paint and asking if they thought it would be enough paint for my space. The clerk had a great idea… mix two of the oops paints together to make sure I had enough. They mixed two greens together so I could see what it would look like before I bought it and it was perfect!
If you are not too picky on getting the exact shade of light green that you saw in a magazine, then this saves tons! I always find colors that I love even though I didn’t agonize over all of the paint chips in the store.
I love finding the colours I’m looking for that way. I’ve even bought paint far darker than I had in mind and mixed it with a tine of white so that I would have enough. White paint is always really cheap or at least on offer here. Paint dyes are great as well if you do happen to inherit a huge tin of paint in a weird peachy colour.
You can also check to see if your local recycling center has a hazardous materials section. Our Haz-Mat checks and stores paints, stains, glues, everything you could think of for DIY projects, and it’s FREE!!!
Habitat for Humanity also has ReStores where they sell donated materials and leftovers from projects for hugely discounted rates.