We moved into the new house just about a month ago and boy has it been a whirlwind. We learned from the old house that big projects like painting and carpet needed to be done as soon as possible otherwise we might end up waiting for years before getting things rolling. Painting the kitchen and bedrooms were the first project we wanted to check off the list to make sure that we had a blank slate to decorate. Our new house came with a bold choice in colors and covering those up allowed us to put a personal touch on the house and feel more like home immediately.
Once the project was done, we needed to get rid of the many buckets of paint left from the previous owners. Leftover paint can be hazardous, especially if its old enough to have lead, so throwing old paint away isn’t an option.
I just recently learned that in 2014 Governor Hickenlooper signed the PaintCare program into action, providing services to collect paint from drop-off sites throughout the state to processing facilities where it can be repurposed. Thanks to PaintCare, there’s no need to keep gallons and gallons of paints around to collect dust because there is nothing else to do with it. Dropping paint to PaintCare completely free, thanks to a fee small added to the sale of paint throughout the state and there are over 150 drop-off sites who accept any brand of paint regardless of where it was originally purchased.
PaintCare Accepted Products
- Interior and exterior architectural paints: latex, acrylic, water-based, alkyd, oil-based, enamel (including textured coatings)
- Deck coatings, floor paints (including elastomeric)
- Primers, sealers, undercoaters
- Stains
- Shellacs, lacquers, varnishes, urethanes (single component)
- Waterproofing concrete/masonry/wood sealers and repellents (not tar or bitumen-based)
- Metal coatings, rust preventatives
- Field and lawn paints
Empty cans are not accepted by PaintCare and can instead be dropped off in regular recycling or disposed of in the trash. Paint cans should be completely empty and any paint inside must be fully dry.
Dropping off paint is easy, and there are over 100 drop off sites throughout Colorado (and several other states). If you have paint you’d like to recycle, you can find a location near you on the PaintCare website location search. Lucky for us, the Sherwin Williams where we bought the new paint is also a drop off location so we could easily drop off all the old bold paint colors at the same time as picking up the new ones. Just like that, its out with the old and in with new!
Now that we are done painting, I’ll store some of the paint for touchups and in case we want to paint any other rooms, but all the extra stuff I’m going to hand off to PaintCare. Why trip over something I don’t need?
What are some of the projects you did when you first moved into your home? How did you prioritize where to start?
Photos courtesy of PaintCare.
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