How to Buy a Discontinued Paint Color

Go to a store that sells the brand of paint you need. Stores that sell certain brands typically have formulas for recreating discontinued colors by mixing other colors.

Call area home improvement and hardware stores if the paint was discontinued not long ago. They may still have cans of this paint available on clearance.

Use a paint color matching service if you can bring in a paint sample or even a sample card from your original purchase. Many home improvement stores offer this service so they can mix paints for you to recreate the color. At Lowes Paint Project Center, for instance, they'll custom-create the color for you at no extra charge beyond the paint price if you bring in a paint color card or swatch.

Use a paint mixing service that can recreate the color. Myperfectcolor.com offers thousands of discontinued colors that they custom create. You can choose your brand from a drop-down menu and then find the color on the corresponding pages. You also can enter the name of the paint color if you remember the name but not the brand. After identifying the color, you can choose from a wide variety of finishes, such as matte, semi-gloss and high-gloss. The company offers paint in gallons, quarts, pints and sample mini-cans. Gallons run from $38 to $69 as of 2009, depending on the finish, and touch-up pints at $11 to $16.

Use a free service that matches your discontinued paint with colors currently available. At Colorcharts.org, you search by color name or brand, and the service shows you the closest matches. You can then buy this paint from a home improvement or hardware store. If you need an exact match and cannot tolerate even a 5 percent difference in hue, this service may not work for you.