Does Paint Go Bad?

When you are a person who paints, and paints a lot, you begin to learn the 'in's' and 'out's' of it. We have painted our whole 1,980 sq ft. house ourselves, so were pretty familiar:) Through painting all the rooms I began to wonder if the paint I bought as 'extra' would go bad on me before I even needed it. So without further ado, here are some points to keep in mind:

• Always seal the can completely {tip: we put a paper towel, bag, old rag, etc. over the lid when we hammer it on-this protects us and the surroundings from getting sprayed with little spots of paint}
• Keep the cans inside your house if possible. If the paint gets too cold or too hot it will go bad much faster. We of course keep ours in the garage, where it gets to only 100 million degrees during the summer, very smart. Very,very, smart;)
• When testing to see if the paint is still good, paint it on a test area, or even on those free stirring sticks they give you. Let it dry for a little to make sure the color is the same and that it sets up well.
• Make sure you either keep a list of the paint code, or at minimum the name of the color, for future purchasing. That way you will be guaranteed to get a matching color.
• If paint even slightly looks discolored, texture is chunky, smell is way off..TOSS IT. You do not want to spend time painting on a color and have it be expired.

From what we've experienced and what i've read, there is no real set expiration date on all paints. Some stay good for 2 years, some 7, it just depends on the conditions the paint is kept in.

With all that said, can you guess what I tossed out a lot of this past weekend?

all cans either expired, empty, or WHO KNOWS where they came from!

Im still in awe of myself that I thought the orange would be a good bathroom color and the green a good office color!

We did some serious spring cleaning of the garage. We had so much stuff thrown in there from the kitchen makeover, and with summer coming up, J wanted to clear it out so he could actually park in there!

old kitchen cabinets, along with a mess of other stuff

We even found a mirror in the garage that the previous owners must have left! We are clueless as to how we haven't seen this before!

Is anyone else doing spring cleaning? Have you ever opened a can of expired paint and wanted to puke? I have:)

<3,
Adri

Paint info sources: here, here, and here.

Pin It