Cleaning Out the Paint Cabinet

Yesterday I spent some time cleaning out the paint cabinet.

I feel great. Lighter, even. Not only is my workshop (where the paint cabinet lives) much tidier, but I’ve reclaimed a bunch of space.

We’ve lived here a long time, so that cabinet had accumulated all sorts of partially used cans of a million different colors. Gallons, quarts, spray cans — bunches of them. Some almost full, and some mostly gone. Some were dried up and useless.

I’m a bit of a hoarder. I’m the kinda guy that saved all the paint cans. Because, you know, I may need it someday. You never know when you might need to reach way back into that cabinet to retrieve a long-forgotten color.

In fact, as I went through the dozens of cans, I realized that some of the colors were from rooms that we had painted two or three times since. I couldn’t even remember in which room we used them.

You probably have one also. A cabinet, shelf, or corner somewhere that accumulates all of those partially used paint cans of long-forgotten colors. The ones that you convince yourself that you may need someday. Go ahead and dig in on a Sunday afternoon.

This message isn’t about paint.