Make Your Next Paint Job Easier With Prime Painting Tips

6/2/2005

Want to make your next paint job look better and last longer? Do what professional painters do: use one coat of tinted primer and one coat of paint instead of two coats of paint.

Primers are much richer in resin than ordinary paint, which gives them the ability to provide a better base for the second coat. If you tint your primer toward the color of your finish coat, you get all the benefits of priming, without adding an extra step.

And tinting a primer is easy! High-quality primer-sealers are specially formulated for tinting. Just ask your paint store or home center clerk to add the same colorant they use to mix your finish coat and you're on your way to a better paint job.

Primers will hide dark or unwanted colors far better than finish paint and prevent them from showing through or changing the color of the topcoat. By using a tinted primer you can get a more uniform color than you can achieve by just using ordinary paint.

Quality primer-sealers are also great at sealing porous surfaces, so you'll actually use less paint, saving you time and money. Plus, they work hard to kill stains. Most stains -- water stains, crayon and marker, lipstick, nicotine and others -- will bleed right through ordinary paint. Quality primer-sealers seal in stains and prevent them from ruining the paint job.

High quality primers offer great adhesion, so you can paint over glossy, hard-to-paint surfaces like paneling, cabinets, semi-gloss paint and vinyl siding without sanding. You just can't paint over glossy surfaces with a topcoat!

Because primers are specifically formulated to prevent common paint problems, like cracking, peeling and blistering, they'll make any painted surface more durable, washable -- and last much longer.