picking out paint and saving some dough

We hope you all had a wonderful celebration with family or friends and you were able to take a look back at 2013 while looking forward to 2014 and a whole new year of opportunities! From Rob and I (and Oswin and Harlee) to you and yours, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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Over the summer, before we even bought the house, my aunt told me (when discussing home renovation and painting) to "never settle or get your heart set on a color until you see what the local paint stores have in stock as "mis-tints."" I'm so glad she told us about this option because it has already saved us hundreds on paint!

Listening to her advice is how we first settled on Benjamin Moore "White Water" for the dining room. I went into a local paint shop before we even moved into the house for some inspiration. I remembered to ask if they had any mistints and just like magic by asking this question I was able to get two gallons of a color that I immediately loved for $10/each. It wasn't the color I was looking for but because I hadn't spent too much time committing to a specific color, we only spent $20 where we should have probably spent $130 or more!

Now that the dining room is all painted and looking lovely, we are in full paint mode to complete the other rooms that we have goals to paint. For most of the rooms we didn't even have an idea of what color we wanted when we set those goals; we wanted to get all the furniture and art we liked in place before picking a color. It's much easier for us to work backwards and finish with paint than to paint a room and try and match everything to that scheme.

On New Years Eve, on my way home from work, I stopped at another local paint shop right as they were closing. They were nice enough to stay open for a couple extra minutes to allow me to get what I needed. My first stop was - yes, you guessed it - the mistint section. I dug through gallons of paint with help from one of their associates and found a color that would look perfect in the living room. The best part? It was only $5/gallon down from $65!!! Success, another room painted for under $10!! After looking through all the colors in the mistint area, I didn't find anything else that I liked and resolved to paying full price for a nice rich color for the ceiling in the hallway, after all I had already secured quite a bargain. I picked my color and told the associate that I only needed a quart, his partner quickly turned and said "why don't you give her one of the gallons that are on sale in the front, it will only cost $10." Again, CHA CHING! Even the paint that I was willing and expecting to pay full price for only came in at $10/gallon down from $65!!

I scored two gallons of their highest quality paints for a grand total of $15.90 and saved over $115.00!! Talk about a great price!

For a general look at our color scheme I found these swatches online. Winter White is our dining room color, Phantom Mist is for the hallway ceiling, and I would say that the mistint for the living room is somewhere between Arabian Sands and Covered Wagon.

New house paint savings so far:

Dining Room - Winter White: $130 $20
Living Room - Mistint Tan: $65 $5
Hallway Ceiling - Phantom Mist: $65 $10
Kitchen - Mermaid Green: $11 (the only paint we've paid full price for yet!)

GRAND TOTAL: $271 $46

Not only has buying high quality paint for cheap become a very fun game to us, we are so happy to save we've saved hundreds doing it!

Happy New Year once again and happy paint hunting to those of you in the market!

Until next time, Lindsey

*** Do any of you have success stories when it comes to bargain hunting for home renovation materials!? We'd love to hear from you!