An easy way to save your customer money

Q:  Can you mix paints?
A:  Depends, see below

Generally speaking if you are using interior water-borne paints with the same sheen you can mix them.  I don't recommend it in the event a customer has signed an agreement where you are charging them for one product but then mixing it with another.  But their are a few scenarios where it works pretty well.  For homeowners not working with a professional painting contractor and they want to throw some paint on an old shed (just to clean it up) the general rules are as follows:  You can mix water based interior paints with any other water-based interior paint of the same sheen (and the sheen really doesn't matter if you mix it with a paddle drill and continually stir it through the application process).  You can also mix oil based paints (interior with interior and exterior with exterior).  Just make sure the paint is not lumpy, you've filtered it, and you mix it with a drill and paddle.  I don't recommend this for a painting contractor working with a homeowner.  In the event a homeowner has purchased a job with new quality products, it is wrong to cut the product they've purchased.  In one rare case however, I had the following example and it did work to save the customer money.
Example:  We were painting a house for re-sale (a foreclosure house for a bank), and there are multiple colors in the home, and the agent wants everything painted one color, it may be hard to cover everything in one coat.

My recommendation is to purchase the darkest color in the beige family that will cover in one coat.  (or match it to the darkest beige on site that is acceptable to the seller) and then mix in white on the job site to lighten the color as needed.  That way the painter is saving time (because they don't have to paint multiple colors in multiple rooms) and the customer is saving money (because in at least some rooms you can cover in one coat).  Of course you'll need to put 2 coats on some walls and areas.  I would not recommend this for a homeowner looking to stay in their house.  I would also not recommend it on any area where durability is a concern.  There is no one coat product substitute for the quality process of:  one coat primer, 2 top coats of a quality acrylic paint.  With that said, a lot of people are only looking to clean up the look of their home for staging purposes and are looking to save money.  This is a simple way to save them a few dollars on the job site.

As promised, here are a few pictures I've added after the fact that show the walls.  These smart phone images are as clear as I can make them but I hope the point is clear that after one matching coat (after all mud was primed of course) the finish is prefect for staging.

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