Getting Rid of Old Paint

[Bryan Schwegler]

So having just moved into my house, I discovered a boatload of old latex paint that was left for me in the basement. Most still have quite a bit of paint left in them.

I took a look at the Lakewood Refuse site and it says that I need to dry all the paint before they'll take it. For alot of this, that will take forever, even with mixing it with kitty litter.

Does anyone have any advice or other alternatives?

[Jeff Endress]

Bryan

I saw a product at Home Depot that you add to the paint and it quickly solidifies it. It's in the paint dept at the counter. It might be a short cut...

Jeff

[Joe Ott]

Bryan.

Latex has to be dried. You can speed the process by pouring it onto plastic, cardboard, or something like that; spread it out so it cures quicker. Also, Home Cheapo sells pouches of stuff you mix with the paint and turns into a glob of dried up stuff. It actually works - kinda. It helps a lot.

Once the can is dried out, make sure the lid if off before you put it on the tree lawn. They have to be able to see it is dried.

Be careful if there is any oil based varnish (poly's and so on) and rags, paper, towels or whatever that might be soaked with the poly due to the real possibility of spontaneous combustion.

Call the Refuse dept. They have always been very helpful for/to me. Oh, and I think they have special drop off or pick up once a year or so for things like you have and/or hazardous stuf. Maybe? I don't recall...

Good luck.
Joe

[dl meckes]

Take a close look at that paint before you throw it away. Sometimes it's difficult to match some colors that need to be matched, like something that you may want to fix and not totally repaint.

We got rid of a can of outside paint and it wasn't easy matching the stuff. It would have been far easier if we had saved the lid. Or the numbers. Or something.

[Bryan Schwegler]

Take a close look at that paint before you throw it away. Sometimes it's difficult to match some colors that need to be matched, like something that you may want to fix and not totally repaint.

We got rid of a can of outside paint and it wasn't easy matching the stuff. It would have been far easier if we had saved the lid. Or the numbers. Or something.

That's a good point. We went through and picked out everything we wanted to keep. The stuff we're getting rid of is definitely paint we wouldn't want to use again

[David Anderson]

I had a similar problem, Bryan.

The folks at the recycling center provided a great idea. If you are tearing-out carpet. unroll it on the back lawn and pour the paint on it. After it dries, roll the carpet back up and take it to the recycling center.

I'm sure the center has some carpet if you don't.

[Bryan Schwegler]

Very interesting idea, thanks. I'm actually going to be tearing out some carpet in the near future so I'll have to give it a try.

[dl meckes]

Wear a mask.

I prefer the ones that look like duck bills. Because I wear glasses, these fit better.

We had a lot of dirt in the wood floors after DH took up the carpets and after trying nearly every cleaning solution known to mankind, I found that an ammonia and water solution did the best job. But I'm still not finished with that...

If your floors aren't in terrible shape, we highly recommend Varathane Renewal wood floor restoring system. We've used this on floors in our house and in the in-laws' house. It makes a huge difference, there's no sanding, and if you don't like the way the floor turns out, you can still sand.

We did sand, stain and refinish one room at the in-laws' and it was a lot of work. We used an edger because it was a small room and wrestling a drum sander isn't easy. The staining was the worst part of that project, and I'm sure there's a different way to handle that part of the job (than what we did).