In Which I Am Probably High On Paint Fumes But Get Some Stuff Done

So I took the opportunity today while Connor was at school to start tackling the Hazardous Materials Corner we've had sitting in our garage since we bought the house.  These are all the glorious gifts the old owners left us, like the car battery in the hall closet, the half-full container of boat fuel, and various unidentified substances sitting around in unlabeled containers.  I've been slowly whittling away at it for a while, but one thing I had yet to do was tackle the old latex paint cans we found scattered throughout the house and garage.

Here's my glorious bounty of paint, people.  The oldest can I found was dated 1992.  It was, predictably, white.  There are fifteen cans of white paint there (look at the lids, not interior of the cans-- that is some old paint), and nearly all of them are the same color: Whisper White.  These people really liked Whisper White.  Some of them are almost entirely full.

Those cans are from two owners back, and you can tell because they are all lovingly labeled with the date they were mixed, the color of the paint and the room they were intended for.  Evidently they believed they needed a new, fresh can of paint for each room.  So there are labels like: "Wally's Bathroom, December 1993, Whisper White" and "Kitchen, August 1996, Whisper White," and, in a startling design departure: "Wally's Room, September 1994, Pure White." 

Bold move, Wally.  Bold move.

Then there are the paint cans from the people we bought the house from.  There are two cans of unlabeled white paint that I know are theirs from the date printed on the can, and then there are the only three non-white cans in this whole thing: the extra paint from what is now Connor's room, formally known as the Dartboard Room of Death. 

Just back away slowly and make no sudden movements.  It can sense your fear.

Apparently they painted this room in 2006, which means they must have liked it because they actually lived with it for three entire years before they sold the house to us.  Their designer room ideas seem to have petered out after that though, because I'm pretty sure they didn't touch the rest of the paint in the house; it all looked suspiciously like ten year old Whisper White when we bought the place.  This is a good thing though, because Connor's room was one of the smallest in the house.  I don't even want to think how much Kilz we would have needed if they'd decided to make over the living room. 

So at any rate, with latex paint you just have to let it dry out and then you can throw it away in your regular garbage.  I pried open the lids of all of these cans, and I'll probably add some kitty litter or paint hardener to the really full ones to speed up the process.  Then we'll haul the whole mess to the dump along with our next load of Dangerous Things The Previous Owners Couldn't Bother To Get Rid Of Themselves. 

No, really.  This is about half of it.

Fun times!


~Jess

P.S.: Bonus Fact!  I've just been informed that apparently the exterior of the White House was, at least in 1989, painted Duron Whisper White.  Who knew?  Apparently we had the most patriotic house interior on the block, before we ruined it all by painting it mostly Sherwin-Williams Latte instead.  Oh well.