When you want to paint a room and only need about a gallon to paint, start looking at the oops sections at the local paint stores (Walmart, Lowes, Home Depot, etc). They will mark down the gallons of paint they mixed (but customers didn’t like). Make sure you ask them to shake it!
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And here I thought I was the only one who loves oops paint. We painted our whole house inside with various shades of oops!
LOVE LOVE LOVE Oops paint. When I need to paint a room that I know will only take 1 gallon of paint (a bathroom, a small kids room, my front door, etc), I won’t use anything but Oops paint. I’ll wait and wait until I find just the right color for $5/gallon off the oops shelf. Just a word of caution though, when the previous customer returns the can in the first place, the store does open it up and slightly change the color (to prevent that same customer from just turning right around and buying the same can of paint for $5 off the oops shelf – I was told this by a Lowe’s employee). So, I just wouldn’t ever purchase 2 gallons of paint off the oops shelf that look the same, thinking they will be the identical color, because they most likely will be off a bit.
That’s a very good point! :)
Or if you do find 2 gallons that look the same but you’re concerned about them being slightly different, just dump them together and mix well.
My husband and I actually did that a few years ago with slightly different shades of OOPS paint when we bought an old camper that needed some work. We found 3 gallons of OOPS paint that were all similar shades of off-white. Mixed them all together and repainted the inside, it worked great. We ended up with more than we needed for the camper and used it to paint our dingy mudroom.
What a great idea! I am getting ready to paint my daughter’s room. I will def check out the oops section.
I always check the oops self when we go into Lowes! This last time I found a red color so now we are painting our boys’ bathroom red on the lower half, black trim, and white on top and then buying the Mickey Mouse bathroom accessories at Target!! Can’t wait!
You’ll have to send me a picture when it’s done. :)
I love oops paint!!! We have used it as well on several rooms! Also I dont stress about touch ups etc and not knowing the exact color, most paint stores have matching systems that you can take the old lid, even a torn piece of sheetrock or the color painted on a watch in and they can pretty well exact match it just in case you ever needed to! Great tip! You also contact local painters that need to dispose of extra paints leftover from commercial or residential jobs, my in laws are painters and always have half full gallons on so left over that need to be disposed of and with tight regulations on dumping paints they are more than happy to give it to anyone. These would be great for small projects!!
I love shopping the oops paint section. I’ve bought some beautiful colors that I’ve used throughout my house, including on some furniture. The color in my living room is from an oops paint purchase that I liked so much I bought more to complete the living room walls.
I’ve painted 2 rooms in my house with the oops paint. I love looking to see what I’ll find each time we are at Lowes. One of the rooms I wasn’t even planning on painting, but the color was great and I think it was $8 for a gallon, I decided the guest room could use an $8 make over. I’m always looking to see if I find more great colors for the rest of the house!
That is awesome. :)
we bought our house 6 years ago and we were poor…we were young, right out of college and super excited about our new home. but we were shocked at the cost of paint…so we went oops shopping. i have NO idea what the names of the colors are in my house..but my living/dining room is a lovely shade of beige, my bedroom is a beautiful teal, and my son’s rooms are blue and yellow…and…we painted the whole house with oops paint..at that time..cost us less than $30 to do our whole house. i totally suggest checking it out!!!
I just used a $2.50 can of oops paint to paint the loft in my son’s room. The original cost was $23. I have a habit of checking the oops shelf. You won’t believe the great finds!!