Several years ago when you had your house painted, you carefully labeled and stored the leftover paint. The paint is too old or maybe there’s not enough left, so you head out to the paint store and buy another can of the same brand, sheen and color to do “touch-ups”. After an hour or so of painting you stand back to admire your work and you see that the paint doesn’t match! What happened?!? The newly touched-up areas are a close match to the rest of the wall but it’s off just a bit and now you have a splotchy wall. Unfortunately, the only solution now is to repaint the wall corner to corner.

I wish I could tell you that there was a simple way to avoid this, but there really isn’t. Unless you have enough of original paint left that is still in good conditions, touch-up really can’t be done unless it is a fairly recent project. Over the years in California, regulations have determined changes several times in how paint companies can manufacture paint. When they have to change systems and formulas, it is inevitable that they can’t exactly reproduce the exact appearance of the paints year to year.

Our advice is to call the paint store where you bought the original paint. Tell them what year the original paint is from and if their formulas or systems have changed since then. If they have changed, the best way to get a “match” is to take in the old can to have the store match it from a sample. If you don’t have a sample or the match is still not close enough, the only option left is to re-paint the whole wall. Or, you can take advantage of the situation and make a change to an entirely new color for a fresh look!