A property manager walked me into a storage room full of unlabelled, half-frozen paint cans — and not one of them could be used for the touch-ups she needed
A property manager asked me to quote corridor touch-ups at a mid-rise, and before we started she showed me the “paint room”: a cage in the parkade with forty-odd cans left behind by three different painters. Half had no labels, some had rusted lids, and a few had frozen and gone lumpy over the winter. None of it could be trusted on her walls. This post covers how to keep leftover paint, called attic stock, so it actually saves you money on the next touch-up. For property managers and condo boards, not homeowners.
1. A can without a label is a can you can’t use
The colour name on the lid isn’t enough. To touch up a wall so it disappears, you need the brand, the product line, the sheen, the colour code and the batch or date. Two paints with the same colour name in different sheens will never blend, and the same colour in a different product line can look a shade off once it dries.
When I find an unlabelled can, I can’t tell the manager whether it’s the corridor colour from the last repaint or the one before it. So it goes unused, and the building pays for new paint anyway.
What to look at: Pick five cans at random from your storage room. If you can’t tell exactly where each one goes and what sheen it is, your attic stock isn’t working for you.
2. Ask for attic stock in the painting contract
The easiest time to get good leftover paint is at the end of a repaint, when the painter has the exact product already open. I recommend writing it into the scope: a set amount of each colour and sheen left behind, in sealed cans, labelled with the location it was used, the product, the sheen, the colour code and the date. One or two gallons per colour is usually plenty for a corridor or lobby.
If it isn’t in the scope, it often doesn’t happen. The last coat goes on, the crew packs up, and the leftovers leave with them or end up in mixed, half-empty cans.
What to look at: Check your current or next painting scope for an attic stock line. If there isn’t one, add it before the contract is signed. I wrote more about why touch-ups fail in condo paint touch-ups and colour matching.
3. Store it where it won’t freeze or cook
Latex paint that freezes can turn lumpy or stringy and lose its ability to bond, and it often won’t recover once it thaws. In Ottawa, an unheated parkade cage or an exterior shed can drop well below freezing in January. A boiler room or a hot mechanical room is the other extreme, and heat dries out the top of the can.
The best spot is a heated storage room with a steady room temperature, off the floor, with lids hammered tight. Stored that way, sealed latex paint usually stays usable for years.
What to look at: Find out whether your paint storage is heated in winter. If it’s in the parkade, move it inside before the first hard frost.
4. Keep a one-page paint log
A simple paint log saves more time than any label. One page, kept in the building binder or the management software: every area of the building, the product, sheen and colour code used there, who painted it and when, and where the leftover cans are stored. When a new painter or a new manager arrives, the information is there instead of in someone’s memory.
It also helps the board. When the next repaint comes up in the reserve fund plan, the log shows which areas were done last and with what. The sheen choice matters too, especially in high-traffic areas; I explain that in interior paint sheen and washability.
What to look at: If your building has no paint log, start one with the next touch-up job and ask your painter to fill in the areas they know.
5. Clear out the cans you’ll never use
Old, unlabelled or frozen paint is just clutter, and it can hide the good cans behind it. Once a year, go through the storage room, keep what is labelled and in good shape, and take the rest to a paint drop-off. Many paint retailers and municipal hazardous waste depots in Ontario take leftover paint back.
What to look at: Put a yearly paint room clean-out on the maintenance calendar, ideally in the fall, before the cans freeze.
What to do if you’re seeing any of this
If your paint room looks like the one I walked into, I can go through it with you, tell you which cans are still worth keeping, and set up a paint log for your common areas so the next touch-up actually matches. I work with condominium corporations and property managers across Ottawa — Kanata, Nepean, Barrhaven, Orleans, Stittsville and Westboro — on corridor, lobby and common-area painting and drywall. Call 613.325.3011 or email yasir@heims.ca.
— Yasir, HEIMS Construction
HEIMS Construction is an Ottawa-based commercial painting and drywall contractor serving condominium corporations, property managers and institutional clients across the Ottawa area. Fully licensed and insured, with $5M commercial general liability coverage.