Guide FOR:
Boxing Paint
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Paint rollers and paint sprayers can save you a lot of time, and are super affordable. Plus, painting your own home can be a worthwhile investment! However, many new homeowners know the feeling of running out of paint while completing a project. If you haven’t heard of boxing paint, then you need to as it can save you a whole lot of future headaches!
Picture This
You just bought a house and you’ve followed all the tips and tricks new homeowners should do after moving in. Even though you got a good deal on the purchase price of your property, you are now trying to conserve some money.
New Homeowner Tip: Sometimes new homeowners jump to making updates to their new house right after buying it. However, you really learn the problems with your house about a year or two after living there. If you jump to renovating things before knowing the home, you may end up spending more than you’d like!
So, instead– you decide to paint the rooms in your home on your own. You are not really sure how much paint you’ll need, so you make a conservative estimate. The less you have to waste– the better, right?
But then, half way through one of your walls, you run out of paint! You say, “no worries, I will go back to the store and buy another gallon of the same paint!”
You come back to the now fully dried wall, and finish the other half with the additional paint. Your room looks great and you think: No problem, right?
Wrong!
The dilemma with Running Out of Paint
The paint colors you see at the store are mixed in with a base color. Even paint cans with the same brand and color can have very minor differences in their tint or hue.
As a homeowner, you may use one pint on a portion of a wall, and a different pint on the other portion. Things might look okay at first, but wait and see what happens when the paint dries.
Even though you bought the exact same paint, you might notice that there is a difference in color. Some people don’t mind a little inconsistency with the colors of paint on a wall. However, for me–a wall that looks even slightly off would drive me absolutely crazy! If you can relate, then boxing paint might help!
The Solution:
Boxing Paint
To avoid uneven or different paint tones on a wall, you should try boxing paint!
Boxing Paint is when you take multiple paint cans of a single color and add them into one large container. You then mix your container to ensure that the paint is blended together creating a consistent hue for the mix. Boxing paint will prevent color differences from being visible on your projects, and is especially useful on large surface areas.
Then, anytime your container is half empty or a quarter empty, you can add additional paint cans and mix the solution again. Boxing paint may seem tedious, but can save you from creating an eye sore.
If you are painting the exterior of a home, then boxing paint is a must-do task! Home exteriors painted without the boxing paint method can look like eye-sores really quickly! A home exterior experiences a lot of different climates, and therefore even small differences in color variations are extremely noticeable.
Home Exterior
One of my neighbors tried saving money by painting the exterior of their home on their own. The result, while much nicer than what it initially looked like, definitely contained many different shades of blue.
My neighbors were super frustrated because they bought the same paint can, and never heard of the boxing paint method. So while they saved money by painting their own home, they had to go over their painting job with a new coat to fix their error.
Q: Help! I didn't use the Boxing Paint method, and I can see the difference of paint tones on my wall! Is there anything I can do?
I recommend that you repaint your wall using the boxing paint method. If you ran out of paint while only completing a portion of your wall, then you should add an additional coat over both the painted areas and the unpainted areas. You may need to re-apply a secondary coat to really cover up any inconsistencies.
Many high-quality paints may not even require boxing paint. There are some paint brands that guarantee a one coat consistent paint color. If you see a problem, you may be able to get additional paint by telling the manufacturer of the difference in hues.
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