I’m not asking if I should or not, but rather I am curious as to how many of you painting over contractor-painted walls go through the process of priming those walls before repainting them, or do you usually just paint-away?
I’ve seen both good and bad cases in my own home when painting over the contractor cream or light tan colored walls. For instance, in the MB I primed it with a neitral gray (one coat) before applying the red-tone colored paint. I have seen what happens, though, when not painting with a primed surface that even Superpaint (example) seems to have trouble covering. This includes rooms done with color tones in blue and green. And these unprimed rooms took a couple of coats to ‘hide’ what was underneath.
I would imagine that a darker pre-existing color makes putting down a lighter color more difficult. I once had an interior painter/decorator tell me that for some colors (reds, etc.) he chooses to put down a black primer. Scary. Still, how would one go about hiding a dark purple-blue when restoring a room to a sunny bedroom?
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Generally on a wall that is already painted I don't prime. But priming can help when making a significant color change.
When going from a dark color to a light one I'd think it would help to prime first. True Value used to make a high-hiding primer which was actually quite inexpensive. Recently in an Ace store I saw a primer (not Ace brand) containing "ceramic" which was supposed to hide well. The description is marketing hyperbole, since all the normal opacifiers (titanium dioxide, silicon dioxide) are ceramics anyway. I think in this example it is more important to pick a primer with good hiding ability rather than sealing ability.
Bright red is a particularly difficult color to put over something else. The reason is that the opacifiers added to make paint cover are white, and in bright red paint (and some other colors) can't be used otherwise they'd turn the paint pink. So, red takes 3 to 4 coats. I saw a demonstration board in a paint department that painted red over several different color backgrounds. The red covered best over a dark gray, believe it or not. That agrees with what experienced painters have told me.
Same here. I don't normally prime walls, but trims often neeedd scraping and sanding repairs first. walls can be fine with just some spackling unless heavily damaged or plaster coated. or if wallpaper was removed [previously...
A primer has three functions, or two, depending how you look at it.
One is to seal and bond. Primers have a higher percentage of bonding agents, like PVA, than topcoats have. So any repairs with new patch material should be primed to seal and hide and even out the textures.
but large colour variatoins need the pigment and hiding that tinted primers can provide. Daark grey or black is the right way to deal with red, or you can end up with seven coats before the red covers. The tints should go the same direction as the finish coats, buit not all the way, that way you can still see easily what is painted and what is not
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The best paint jobs that I have done in my house have all had primed walls and woodwork. I use Benjamin Moore's Fresh Start primers tinted to 3/4 strength of the topcoat color. I use an oil base primer and top coat on the wood trim and acrylic paints on the walls. When I do a faux finish, I use oil base paints because the working time is longer.
Stanley J