Labeling Paint Cans

After moving in to our townhouse a couple years ago, we’ve racked up a good amount of paint cans and lots of painting! Labeling these with more complete information (including date purchased and room used in) found it’s way to the bottom of a very long to do list.

Yes, this seemed like a back-burner project for the longest time. That was until I needed to touch up the paint in several rooms we had painted. Uh oh. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember which paint went with which room (apparently I use LOTS of different shades of gray paint!) and I was pretty sure I was missing a couple paint cans as well. Thank goodness my local Benjamin Moore store kept a file of my past purchases.

So no time like the present to get these paint cans organized with better labels.

I know what some of you are thinking …. typically when you purchase a new can of paint, it’s already labeled: either at the top of the can, if the store is mixing the paint for you, or on the side if it’s an off the shelf pre-made color. But not typically both. For this labeling project, I chose to stick labels on both sides. The main reason for this is that I’m admittedly a messy painter and paint often drips on the side of the can, not only causing a mess, but also covering the original label. So better safe than sorry with two labels, right?

I created these labels on 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper and printed on stickered white paper. In the template, you’ll find labels for the tops of your 1 gallon cans, 1 quart cans, and 1 pint cans as well as universal labels for the sides of all these cans.

To grab a copy of your own Printable Paint Can Template, just download it from our Organization Toolkit now!

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To make these super easy to adhere, print them out with my stickered white paper. I used my paper cutting tools to cut out the individual labels, but a simple scissor will also do the job just fine!

Each label has space to fill out the following:

• Brand
• Paint color
• Date purchased
• Room
• Paint finish (matte, semi-gloss, etc)
• Notes
• Small circle to make a paint mark for quick visual color reference

Dab a little paint in the circle for a quick visual color reference. I could barely see this color paint … I guess it literally is just a gray tint!

Although I claim to be finished painting rooms in our home (which definitely makes Joe happy), I printed off a couple extra labels just IN CASE I find another room to paint in the future. I store all any extra labels in plastic pouches for easy use.