Of course you can do that - I do it all the time. If the paint is old or hasn't been sealed well you might have to strain out some goobers (technical term!) but it will be fine. Just be sure to mix up enough to do your whole space or you'll have to take some in to be matched at a paint store. Are your paints all the same sheen? You can mix them but then you'll never match that if you need more.

Here's the issue I see with that (have rental properties too): what will you do when it's time to repaint? I promise that time will come sooner than later ;) You'll either be patching walls (nail holes, dings from vacuums, or scrapes from furniture at best, holes punched through walls at worst). Or repainting altogether. You won't be able to duplicate the formula, so you'll have to make sure you have enough on hand for future minor patching between tenants. I usually end up painting between tenants. Not always, but usually. Exceptions are short term tenants (one year max) who are very tidy, moved in with fresh paint, and left the walls in spic and span condition. A good scrubbing and walls look freshly painted again. Longer term tenants, I always repaint.

As far as patching, in my experience, I can sometimes get away with a really good scrubbing and just spackling small nail holes and dabbing some paint on. But areas larger than an inch or so diameter that won't fly, because the new paint stands out against the prior paint and when light/sun hits the wall you can see all the spots from larger patches. That tends to apply even if you use a 'non-custom mix', because paint will fade some over time.

If I were going to mix I'd strictly stick to the same sheen. But that's just me. (There is traffic in paint forum, you might not get an answer within hours, but you'll get one usually within a day or so. That question has been asked there before, I'm pretty sure, so might be worth searching that board.)

As far as using all the whites, make sure you don't start a room without having enough of your 'custom' mix to finish. Otherwise you'll be buying more paint to finish the job and you'll have a harder time matching your custom mix.

For future reference, some good paint I've used for rentals that's no so costly is Glidden Spred Ultra. They have a stock Off White that's a nice neutral, stands out a bit against any white trim, etc. so there's a bit of depth, but it easily matches any tenants furnishings so it's versatile. (That's another thing, if you get too far into colors, you might find the first request of tenants is a request to paint it so it will match their furnishings. I've not had anyone request a repaint with the Glidden Off White.) I can get that for $12-$14 gal on sale, it cleans well and holds up well.

I did have the opportunity to use Ace Interior paint last summer, tenant started a bathroom (against my knowledge) slopped paint everywhere and then bailed on the lease. Good riddance to that one ;) Anyway, there was a half gallon of that paint left in the basement and I fixed the bathroom. It was good paint to work with, looked very nice when done. I wouldn't use a high end BM or SW paint. It's cost prohibitive.

I do this frequently even in my own home, especially in the laundry room and closets. Saves $$ on paint and gets rid of old paint that I would otherwise never use. As other posters indicated, you may want to pay attention to matching the sheen (although I mixed those before too with good results).

Be sure you paint a sample card on some card stock or a scrap of wood (like a paint stir stick) in case you do need to have it color matched in the future. Do two good coats so they can get a good match.

Seeeee, these are things I hadn't even thought of!

I totally would've mixed up a batch without a thought in the world to whether it was enough for the whole room, instead completely focused on making a pretty color, and then I would've been in a real pickle! Thanks for the heads up, whew.

Priority #1 - make sure I mix up enough to do whole room.

#2 - make a little extra & put in a jar in the off chance I'll only need to touch up between tenants, which can also be used for color matching if so needed.

#3 - pull out the goobers (HA!!! love that).

My minds swimming so I'm not sure if I'm missing anything right now...

I'm really glad it is possible, though, because saving $ on anything we can right now is a top priority - both were foreclosures & need work.

We've already got a tenant slated for the first place (the one that needs less work) and she's requested a light lavender for the master bedroom (if possible) and since I've got all this white & two different lavender leftovers I was thinking I could save some $$$'s there as well.

I was assuming I'd have to completely repaint in between tenants (I am completely planning on worst case scenarios right now) so matching for next time wasn't too much of a priority but I'll have that covered now just in case I want to stick with same colors. The homes are pretty small (1,025 sq ft) and ceilings aren't high so painting is something I can handle myself & won't have to hire out.

On a side note - what's with all the hole punching!? Seriously! I'm having to replace doors in these places due to them having fist sized holes punched in them and I've been told to expect that to be reoccurring. Ack.

Thanks all!!!

Fist holes in doors is normal for a rental??? Yikes! We had to rent out our old house because the market here screeched to a halt right when we were trying to sell. Hope I don't have to replace a bunch of interior doors at the end of the lease...

Just a note from someone who is renting after having owned for several years....avoid using color. My landlord LOVES the pale yellow color that she picked out for the entire apartment. It's a nice neutral color I suppose, but it goes with nothing of mine, and I find it kind of depressing. In fact I am already apartment shopping (after 2 months) because I can't take it, and she won't repaint it, or let me repaint it). I would have loved beige or off-white.... and this is coming from a color junkie. One person's idea of a great color isn't necessarily the next persons.

Oh, darn it! Didn't mean to scare you, sarschlos! Please don't be worried because of our worries - as I mentioned I'm in worst case scenario, doom & gloom mode right now.

In the price point our rentals are in (inexpensive, only 2 bedrooms, starter price point) we'll get a lot of younger renters - which I guess can mean more problems than say a family renting out a nice, larger home, etc. Again, this is only what we're hearing & no personal experiences to back this up - yet? lol.

Valzone, I'm sorry to hear that - I remember how much it bugged you right from the get go.

The only place I was going to use color was in the Master Bath because of the blue floor & that icy pale pale blue being "in". But the tenant has requested a lavender for the Master Bedroom so I'm thinking I can oblige her. The rest of the house will be custom shades of light beige created by yours truly, lol!

The second place I'll have to buy paint for and it will be beige through out (nice neutral tile in good condition in baths in that one, hoorah!).

Can't believe she'll lose a tenant over it. Unbelievable.

Wishing you lots & lots of luck finding a place that works out better for you,

Nat

Valzone -- sorry to hear you can't stand your apartment. We did say no when our tenants asked to paint the inside of a garage a dark red. They said they would paint it back at the end of the lease, but our fear was that at the end of the lease when they'll be leaving anyway, there would be very little incentive to do a decent job on the painting, and then I would be stuck with a weird red-blotchy garage to try to lease or sell.

Y'all don't know a thing about rentals!
We have dozens of low income rentals (section 8, trailers, college students) and if a fist through the wall was the worst, we would be so grateful!
I think the very worst was the condo we rented to a series of Indian college students. Bright (obviously), polite, reasonably clean looking and on time with the rent.

After 6 years the Indians students were gone and we had to clean the apartment. OMG! The roaches. It might have been New Delhi we were cleaning. Hundreds of thousands.
Even days after an exterminator sprayed, I was wall papering a bathroom and was laying the very neutral beige wallpaper in a bedroom floor to cut, dozens of roaches would crawl on the paper coming out of the carpet. I kept my purse in the car. And stripped my clothes off at home, outside.

Dh knew it would be this bad; they kept bags of rice laying open on the floor in the kitchen and he had to give them and show how to use a vacuum cleaner.

For days after helping dh clean, I had bad dreams about bugs.
Ok, I'm done venting!

OMG! We're very reluctantly in the landlord biz y'all are scaring the dickens out of me. We've hired a realtor to be the property manager, so I can only hope that there's nothing like that going on! There is no way -- NO WAY -- I would wallpaper in a room full of roaches.

It's not just the color, it's the fact that she is so panicky about this place - about keeping it looking brand new. I am afraid to let my son play here. I wouldn't let him destroy the place, but I can't relax at all when he's here, worried that he might scratch something, etc. She was here the other day and went on and on about a horrible tenant that she had that "caused me so much grief and expense to fix the holes where she'd hung pictures". Yikes.

The yellow is a nice yellow, it really is, but it's just .... so much of it. It depresses me. Of course, I would probably be depressed by a whole lot of white too, LOL! I guess going from owning a home where I can paint it however I want, to renting a space that isn't mine to color as I please, is part of the problem too ... it's an adjustment for sure.

Here is how it looks with furniture in it (but still no pictures on the walls or permanant window treatments up ... can't put any nail holes or screw holes in the walls, donchaknow). I know, I know....it's a *nice* yellow, LOL!!

{{gwi:1623909}}

{{gwi:1623910}}

Could be worse...could be the same yellow as that Boobah....

ACKKKK!!! I HATE roaches!

Just got back from a very late closing for the first place - holy carp, I hate dealing with foreclosures...ugh...well, atleast it's done...now the work begins and soon we'll enter the world of landlordom, yikes.

I'll report back on my "paint cocktails" at some point, lol.

As far as roaches go, we're including "pest control" as part of what we take care of (this is FL, and we figure in the long run it'll cost less than if we wait to have an infestation) and the pest guy is an inspector DBF often recommends to his buyers for pest inspections so we "know" him pretty well. He'll be doing interior pest control every 3 months so hopefully if we get those much feared (in this area) german roaches we'll know pretty quickly. The side benefit is he'll be able to tell us if anything else is wrong (leaky faucets, broken windows, anything else the tenant is neglecting which might be damaging to the home or our water bill, etc.) and be an extra set of eyes for us. I don't need to know anything personal/private about them & their stuff, etc, and do not want to invade privacy - just that there's nothing hurting the house, while making sure there's no buggies running round the place.

I'm scared out of my mind but really excited at the same time.

I think I'm setting myself up for heartbreak, though - I've got new ORB light fixtures for the baths and the coolest curved shower rods (I'm going to post pics cuz I think they're that cool, lol) and this great fixture for the hallway that I absolutely love and...and....a bunch of other stuff I'm hoping they'll like as much as I do and not ruin.

sarschlos, when our tenant's realtor mentioned to DBF that she'd like to request a color for the master bedroom if possible that was DBF's first response "No red" lol, quickly followed by "We don't want anything that will take 5 coats to cover". We were relieved to hear light lavender. That one I can handle - and do with leftover paint it turns out!!! YAY! :)

Just saw your post, valzone, and I can't say that I blame you one bit. I don't want to be that kind of landlord - what's a nail hole, seriously?! In comparison to a good tenant, I mean really, she's too much IMHO.

I don't know if it works the same in your area but here agents list bulletins on the MLS such as "Need rental, 2 bed, blah blah blah" for other realtors to see and respond if they know of something. That's how we got our tenant - saw a bulletin from another agent. The agent usually gets 1/2 of the first month's rent from the landlord in this area, and in this market there are lots of customers (or former customers whose listings have expired) looking to rent out homes that aren't selling, etc. Perhaps there's an agent that would help you find something?

Hope you find something that's a better fit.

Valzone -- acoreana's description is how we wound up as landlords. The renters wanted our house but kept lowballing on price. Since we couldn't sell at their price and they couldn't buy, we rented to them for 1 year. I'm hoping they'll be happy enough to rent again next year since it appears the housing market around here is only going to get worse.

Acoreana -- I would have had no problem with a lighter color, but a dark red garage?

Valzone, I could not handle all that yellow in every room either and to not be able to put up calendars or pictures would make me want to move also. In all the apartments I lived in, the walls, ceilings and trim were all a dirty looking white color with no contrast in a flat finish that I hated so much. If I was a landlor, I would paint the walls either Linen White, Bone White or Navajo White in an eggshell or satin finish with gloss bright white trim and a bright white happy ceiling. I could not wait to have color but when I put color on the wall, I realized I liked having neutral walls but I like contrast with trim and I do not like flat chalky walls. I love the white ceilings I now have since January since they brighten up all my rooms.

I was looking at a "Navajo White" the other day and I thought of your color search a while back, lynn_2006, lol. That's another sign I spend wayyy too much time on this forum, lol. It is one of the shades I was considering but haven't made up my mind yet.

I keep getting drawn back to this color called "Pony Tail" by Olympic (Lowe's) so I might go that route for the second place.

That reminds me, I needed to run a search for any rooms done in Pony Tail :)

I'm also a big "satin" fan as I find "flat" too easy to ruin. I also prefer "semi-gloss" for baths. With all the hair spray, Lysol spraying, and humidity, I find that dust gets stuck right to the walls & it's so easy to clean w/ a quick wipe down with a damp sponge, and it still looks brand new. Not to mention the red hair dye debacle in DD's bath which stained the toilet but the walls wiped clean, lol.

We're planning on Ultra Pure White in High Gloss for all the trim.

Y'all don't know a thing about rentals!

Not sure how you arrived at that pronouncement. Suspect misinterpretation. Speaking for myself, if I didn't know a thing about rentals or what I was doing this ship would have sunk long ago.

We have dozens of low income rentals (section 8, trailers, college students) and if a fist through the wall was the worst, we would be so grateful!

To clarify: my comment about holes punched in walls being worst case scenario was related to walls only, as the original question is in regard to wall paint.

I could fill a book with stories of damages typically caused by anger, too much alcohol, too much alcohol combined with anger, sheer ignorance, the guy who fancies himself Johnny Handyman (those are dangerous ones, literally) and general lack of regard for someone else's property.

How to avoid bug infestation? Do inspections (or have mgmt do it). I'm relieved to say we've never once had that issue. I typically do 2 formal inspections per year (announced as such). But I'm in homes more frequently for repairs, etc. and always scan for anything out of the ordinary while I'm there. Not talking dust or a pile of clothes on the floor, it's good to learn to train our eyes to see beyond that and look for structural damage, potential problems, etc.

acoreana: Just wanted to offer some suggestions. (My experience comes from owning multiple single family dwellings of 'starter home' real estate variety. So it's middle of the road rental property - not luxury, not low income.) Not trying to be negative, just spare you some potential grief. ;) Fixing up a rental can be fulfilling to the decor lover inside us. But putting too much $ into details is not really a winning situation unless your local market allows you to command rents that offset costs of high end purchases and the property itself calls for high end amenities. If you're a bargain hunter, that's a plus. Nothing is more fulfilling to me than finding something for a steal that's ideal for a rental, makes it nice without being out of alignment cost-wise. I've gotten nice light fixtures for next to nothing on closeout sale, bath mirrors and medicine cabinets for a song at store closings, etc. It does pay to keep an eye out for bargains of that variety! Nicer presentation and if it does get trashed, it's not a big financial loss.

The most important point I wanted to make is you never really know how people live until you get them inside your property. I have had tenants that looked like a landlord's dream on paper and a couple of those turned out to be not so great tenants. One 'perfect' couple on paper turned out to be my worst nightmare (and they were both in need of some serious anger management sessions).

Conversely, I've had tenants with not so good credit, hit on hard times because of circumstances they couldn't control, turned away by other landlords. I opted to give them a chance to get back on their feet and in return they turned out to be some of my most awesome tenants.

If you're brand new to this you'll probably make some mistakes at first, but those are valuable learning experiences. I'm not the big ole meanie type, and can't play that role well, but have learned that it's possible to be cordial and maintain control at the same time. I could write volumes on damages. It's not typical. But sadly it's not rare, either.

Each instance has taught me a lesson. I've got some screening methods I use that only cost some time and save a lot of future grief. If you're interested, email me ;)

But to end on a positive note, for every troublesome tenant I've had the misfortune to encounter, there are far more good ones. Right now I've got great tenants in all the properties, they're happy, I'm happy, life is good (and quiet)! ;D

Okay, now that I'm about to begin mixing, I'm doing a bit of research, and came across this:

http://www.painting-ideas-techniques.com/mixingleftoverpaint.html

I'm posting it here in case someone else comes across this thread who is thinking about doing the same thing.

Here is a link that might be useful: link

Val, lots of empathy from here. In SF, DH and I had extremely mellow landlords, but here in NM, we've run into some real head cases. When we moved out of our first rental, we hired a student to help us and spent thirteen hours, all three of us together, cleaning. Then the landlord came in and docked us half our deposit for bull$@#t: new burner pans on the stove (for which she charged us $50), the cleaner and time she used to degrease the kitchen we'd meticulously scrubbed (and replaced the contact paper in the cabinets!), the time she spent having to re-iron her curtains (no, not kidding). These were people we considered friends, people we'd invited to our wedding. We've never spoken to them since.

Control-freak landlords are hell. No offense intended, I'm sure none of the landlords on this board fall into that category... and sorry to hijack the thread! I've never had a landlord be kind enough to actually take my aesthetic taste into account, so right there you all are light-years beyond the folks I've dealt with...

the time she spent having to re-iron her curtains
Holy Cow! I've heard of some tight fisted landlords but I find that almost laughable. (Sorry, I know it's not funny to you.) I'd be embarrassed to dock someone for something like that.

Change in plans - agent made a mistake - she wants green.

I don't have any left over greens so no go on the left overs there - can still do master bath and maybe I'll do up a very light lavender for the laundry room, I don't think tenants will mind a laundry room in a color...hmmmm, will have to think about this...

I asked the agent to get me a brand/color name so we'll see what she's hoping for. I'll have to buy it...aw shucks. I did save $ on rollers & roller pans & such today at Big Lots so that helps.

Please, no worries about hi-jacking the thread whatsoever! I need to hear stories like this so I understand what I don't want to be - yick. I'd hate to get so wrapped up in all this that I lose my common sense & turn into one of the bad eggs. I keep thinking if I plan for the worst, and am reasonable, that things will be okay - did I just hear someone laughing at me?

:-P