Happy Thursday, friends! And welcome to March! We have lots of projects around here so why don’t you stop by and see how paint samples can be a lifesaver for you too!
If you follow along with my blog you know we are in the process of selling our house. Which of course means, cleaning, purging, minor repairs, etc. We are trying to take care of any little issues that may pop up during an inspection. Plus, we want the house to look in tip top shape. Naturally this includes touch up painting here and there.
A few months ago I started the purging process and tossed out the leftover paint cans I used in painting some of the rooms in the house. Most of the paint cans were rusty, old and dried out so I threw them away before writing down important information such as paint color, finish, brand, etc. My bad!
We have a few walls in need of just a few minor touch ups, but without the paint cans and information, what to do? I figured the only logical thing I could do is repaint the entire rooms, and I didn’t want to do that. (Nor do I have time!) This is one wall in my husband’s office. We had 4 clocks on the wall from when he traveled internationally and we had each time zone represented. We took down the clocks and now we have these glaring holes! I resigned myself to repainting the entire office. Sigh.
Luckily my husband was home and came up with a brilliant solution! He removed the outlet switch plate from the wall in his office and using a razor knife cut out a small chip of drywall with a dab of the paint color. Since there is always paint behind the wall plates, there should be a sample large enough to cut. We did this for his office and the bathroom. We put the chips in a small ziplock bag and took them to Home Depot.
The employee behind the paint desk at Home Depot knew her stuff! She scanned each chip sample into a machine and came up with the perfect color match. Since we only needed a tiny amount of paint we purchased the smallest sample size container by Behr. The samples run about $3.27 each for an 8 ounce jar. She mixed up the samples and put them in the shaker and walla! Pretty darn close! Now we can correctly label each jar for future reference. This will also come in handy when we remove the other pictures from the walls and patch and paint prior to our move.
So, guess what I did today? Previously I patched and sanded the areas needing paint. All I needed to do was to touch up the areas using a small paint brush. Easy peasy! And SO much easier and cheaper than painting an entire room! This is the office wall right after I touched up the holes. Now that the paint has completely dried, you can’t tell where I patched! Great idea, Brad!
This is the Restoration Hardware light fixture I replaced in the guest bathroom. (I bought it at the RH outlet and this light looks much nicer than the builder grade fixture that came with the house.) You can see where the old fixture had a square wall plate.
After color matching the paint in the same way, I touched up the wall around the fixture and you can hardly tell at all!
Chances are, when someone buys our house, they will probably repaint the house anyway. Even though I tried to choose neutral colors that are easy to work with, it still may not be their thing. And that’s fine! Meanwhile, this is a good solution to a common problem.
Also, lesson learned. Our next house I will be sure to label my paint samples as I go and keep better track of my colors. To facilitate this in the future I found a neat little container called Dipsy Dabber. This clever little bottle holds a small sample of your paint and has a handy label where you can write all of the pertinent information and even dab a small color swatch on the outside of the bottle. Wouldn’t this make our lives SO much easier? I am forever moving things around and making holes in the walls so this would be the ticket! Unfortunately everyone, including Amazon, is currently sold out, but keep checking if you are interested. I think they are restocking in March.
Now I’m able to check this project off of my list! Recently my sister needed some touch up paint for her rental property and the paint she used had been discontinued. I wish I had known about this trick a few months ago! This probably would have saved her from repainting the entire house!
Well, there are still several big items on my to-do list, so I’m off. I hope this tip will help you in the future. It could save you from repainting an entire room too!
I hope you have a lovely evening. Guess who is having leftover Bolognese for dinner tonight? Thank you for stopping by. It means so much to me! xoxo Dell
