I'm curious how yall handle this one. When doing a project, what do you do with the leftover stock? I'm not talking about the 5 extra boxes you ordered, I mean the partial box leftover. Do you save it in case you need to make a repair 2 years in the future? Do you throw it away and hope for no repairs? If you do save it, where in the world do you put it?

With the number of houses I have, I've got no room to store anything. I've only got so much room for paint gallons, flooring boxes, electrical supplies, etc. I already have way more tools than I ever thought I would need in college! The other problem I have is if there is a maintenance need in the future, I forget I have leftover and end up buying a new one anyway. I'll see the left over one a couple weeks later and then kick myself.

Been storing and using. Shopping stock first. However we are reaching the last rehab house, will end later this summer, so we have been purging and regifting or selling on craigslist or dumping/trash small bits of things. The last few years we just move it from one vacant house to the next, picking thru it, have saved some money but not any real time. As if I have a half box of deck screws,,, I need a full box, so I still have to buy a box and am still left with a half a box, so what have I really accomplished!

Great question. I will save a certain small amount for repairs and touch ups. For example, boxes of Allure have 15 pieces. Often I'll have 3-12 "boards" left over, and since almost all of my units have that color, I keep a box handy for when Fido tears up a piece.

With paint, I use the same color in all units. Leftovers are marked with address on the bucket. Yeah, that's getting a bit nuts. At one point I had 10 five gallon buckets. Had to whittle those down a bit.

Other than that, I don't save much of anything. If I were doing multiple flips/rehabs simultaneously, I'd consider it but would probably have a small storage unit vs. my garage. We moved houses this past Sept, and I found old stuff I'd saved because (tell me if you've heard this one) "you never know when you'll need it!" stuff from 5-10 years ago. Our garage was a massive mess of clutter.

Thank you for the responses all! They were pretty much along the lines of what I expected. I standardize like most of you as well. I buy paint by the 5 gallon bucket and always have one on hand. The allure is also standard, so doesn't bother me to have 1 box laying around. I know I'll use both of them. It's the repairs that don't happen very often. For instance, I just purchased a house from a family member. It has a flat roof on the addition and they recoated it sometime last year. They had a partial 5 gal bucket of coating left over and gave it to me. It went straight to the haz mat drop site in my city. I'm not storing that for another 10 years (probably wouldn't even be good by the time it was needed). If there's a leak, I can buy 1 gal of the stuff and spread the entire gallon. That's a big IF too...

I used to save everything. Ont time a house needed a painting before selling. The old paint was a custom color. I had saved 2/3 of a 5 gallon bucket of the paint, 8 years in storage. In less than an hour, I painted the front stucco exterior and was able to market and sell the house without spending $2,000 on a painter.

I've started storing the paint LIDS in ziplock bags so we can always take them to get color matched. And writing on the lids which units have that color.

When that hard to match bathroom tile cracks, you'll be glad you saved the remainders.

If storage is a problem, floor a part of your attic and wall it off with a locked door if tenants have access to the attic. If not, just lock attic access door. Store all your scraps for that house in the attic. If you don't use them, you can sell them with the house. The new owner will appreciate it.

with paint you should save some because they occasionally switch the base it is made from (on the march to zero voc) so the same color won't match (not a problem w/ BM).

I stopped saving light fixtures, now that there are LEDs.

I save ply large enough to do under a sink cabinet. I don't save vanities and sinks, they go to habitat.

I am glad I saved the HD laminate countertop pieces because that color is not stock anymore.

Doogie,

I used to save every scrap of everything. In order to grow I had to systematize process.

Standardized. We use the same colors for paint and flooring, saving any remaining product and carrying it to the next project.

My policy for trim is to toss anything that is less than 1/2 stick.

We return anything and everything possible back to the store.

I also calculated the cost to keep, store, and retrieve odd items. Many are damaged in storage. Or we get there and it’s the wrong size.

I figure it cost me $50 each time to pay someone to store it and retrieve it. So I better be saving more than $50 to mess with it .

Lowes and Menards are our warehouse. Go there and get what you need. If they don’t have it you don’t need it

I don’t keep touch up paint because I find it is just as easy to paint from corner to corner. The colors do not need to be a perfect match like a touchup would have to be.