Organizing: Great way to save your paint

This is a tip I learned from my brother who is a house painter by trade. When he is done painting for a client he pours some of the the leftover paint into a plastic water bottle, puts a little water on top (for water based paints) to seal the paint and keep it from drying out and replaces the lid. His clients can easily pour off a little paint for touch ups. They love it.

I've done almost the same thing re-using a 50 oz Seventh Generation laundry soap bottle. The labels are easy to remove and I'm left with a sturdy bottle that will hold a little less than half a gallon. It has a wide mouth to make it easy to pour the paint in (I didn't even need a funnel) and to stir it later. It has a removable pour spout which should be very convenient when I need the paint again. Like most detergent bottles it has slits around the bottom of the pour spout so the excess paint will drain back into the bottle when it's poured. I poured in a little water to seal the top like my brother does.

Label the bottle very clearly. You can dab a little of the paint on so you can see the color just like they do at the paint store. Then be sure and label it with the brand of paint, the exact type of paint base it is and the exact formula for tinting the paint in case you ever need more. Be sure and get all those details right because one brand's Interior Satin will not be the same as another brand's and each brand has it's standard and premium and various other bases that are all different and will tint differently.

I can now store all those half-used up gallons of paint in less than half the space I did before and they are all ready when I need them.

DIY - a little change

I've always wanted to paint the insides of my closets robin's egg blue. I don't know why. Being military, we move around a lot and getting into a house and getting settled right away is usually a priority.  Once those closets are filled with items it has always seemed like too much of a project to empty them and paint them--who is going to notice after all?  This time, I had a long weekend between getting into the house and having our household goods arrive.  I put it to good use.

Coat closet before

Coat closet before

The closets in our new house had only had builder's primer on them for the last 17 years.  I think the builder used up various shades of paint or primer to get the job done.  I found beige, white, grey and a pinkish beige color. One closet had three different colors. The original owners put in a lot of wood shelves, but not all of them got painted so I had bare wood too. I also had builder's notes in pen and childrens' scribbles as well as the typical shoe marks, nail holes and it seems about 50 foam adhesive pads to remove. A previous owner of the home apparently had some sort of addiction to adhesive backed plastic cup hooks.

Pantry After

Pantry After

Above is the soft shade of robin's egg blue in the pantry closet. Afterward I put down thick clear ribbed shelf liner to protect the surface and it looks clean and nice.

A few of the closets got a french vanilla custard type of color instead of the blue and I still have one closet to go, but they do look so much better!

Stay tuned for more house and yard photos of our new place. There's lots still to do.

Sue

Christmas Break Activity

When you have a kid home from school for Christmas break it helps to have some activities planned. Today my eight year old son Caleb and I sat down and painted these ornaments. I had actually meant to purchase some from Dunkdesigns shop on Etsy, but she finished for the season before I got around to it.

Emperor penguin ornament I painted for my son. He's really into penguins.

Snowman and Santa ornament my son painted

Caleb's favorite animal--the tapir. Not just everyone has a tapir ornament!

snowflake ornament by Caleb

Our tree

Merry Christmas!