New Paint, New Perspective

I painted our downstairs bathroom last weekend. I don’t remember the last time I embarked on this type of project, but it was definitely before I started writing books about saving resources.

I’ve been putting off repainting the bathroom for months. I think it was March or April when my son pulled a bit too hard on the towel holder and it detached from the wall, leaving a gaping hole in the wallboard. It wasn’t completely his fault, though. The previous owners of our house hadn’t installed the fixture properly. The anchors that were supposed to hold the screws in place were too short, so they never expanded like they were supposed to.

After looking at the hole in the wall for far too long, I eventually found a patch kit and spackle in the garage and repaired it. The next step was painting the area where I’d spackled, but a search for matching paint came up empty. I saved a small chip and brought it to a paint store for color matching. They said the sample was too small, so I gave up.

Last weekend, I decided it was time to revisit the project. Instead of trying to match the existing wall color, I would repaint the entire room. There were lots of cans of paint in the garage. Maybe I could find one that wasn’t dried out or rusted and was a suitable color.

Using paint from my garage came with three benefits: 1. I wouldn’t need to enter a paint store and be exposed to potentially virus-ridden employees or customers, 2. I would save time and mental energy by not driving to the store and having to choose from amongst hundreds of possible colors, 3. I would save resources by using paint I already owned.

Success! I found a nearly full gallon of light green latex paint, and my husband and I both agreed that the color was workable. Honestly, I preferred it to the orange-ish beige that it would replace.

The original paint color

In the garage was everything else I needed: a scrub brush to clean the walls, a metal paint tray, blue painters’ tape, a canvas drop cloth, and a step ladder. Once the walls were clean and dry, it was time to tape off the area. I was only painting the top half of each wall—the bottom part was a different color that didn’t need repainting—so I used a roll of plastic film with painters’ tape along the top edge.

It’s a useful product, but I thought about the waste of all that plastic. In years past, I hadn’t considered it and had just thrown it all in the trash when I was done painting. This time, I planned to recycle the plastic film. I subscribe to Ridwell, a service that picks up plastic film (any stretchy, thin plastic, like grocery bags, zip-top baggies, and similar materials) from my doorstep every two weeks. If I didn’t have that service, I would have taken the plastic to a drop-off bin at the grocery store.

There was only one decision left to make: paint brush or roller?

The roller comes with one advantage: it is faster to roll paint onto a wall than to brush it on. But cleanup takes much longer since it’s hard to wash all that paint out of the roller. Perhaps some people just throw away the roller with all the paint still on it, but I reuse tools and materials as much as possible.

My old rollers were clean enough to reuse, but the roller wastes more paint. It takes quite a bit to saturate the roller. Rolling is also messier. Excess paint tends to splatter on mirrors and elsewhere if every surface in the room isn’t completely covered with plastic or a drop cloth.

The brush won out.

I actually enjoy painting. It doesn’t take artistic talent to paint a wall all one color, but it does require being present in the moment and paying attention. If you get distracted, you might coat the paintbrush with so much paint that it drips onto your clothing, the floor, or somewhere else you don’t want it to go. If you try to work too quickly, you might miss some spots or not apply enough paint to fully cover the texture of the wall.

The level of attention required to paint a room makes it a meditative activity. Painting is also satisfying because you can see the results right away. And unlike, say, cleaning up the kitchen or sweeping the floor, your work lasts for years.

I like how the bathroom turned out. I’m also pleased that I didn’t need to buy any new tools or materials for the project.

The previous owners of my house left quite a stash of paint, most of which I’m not going to use. In a garage cleanup four or five years ago, I followed the advice to solidify the paint in nearly empty cans by mixing in cat litter. Then I threw the cans in the trash.

I’m doing things differently this time. I will take the unwanted paint to a designated drop-off spot for recycling. The options currently available to me charge a fee to recycle the paint because it takes them time to filter it and mix new colors for resale.

If I hold onto the paint until next April, though, I can take advantage of Paint Care. The program, which is expanding to Washington state next year, allows free drop-off for recycling of both water-based and oil-based paints. Funding will come from a fee added to the purchase price of new paint.

I am glad to see more recycling options for some materials. As I learn about new programs, I will add them to the resource list that I assembled for Rethink the Bins. If you want to know when I update the list and post a new version on my website, please subscribe to my email newsletter.