When is primer not needed

This is an inexpensive way to bring your walls close to their final intended color before adding the more pricey topcoat. Ask about this at your paint store if you are painting a bold or dark color.

Stucco is an incredibly durable, versatile product, and it has been a popular building material from Los Angeles to New York to How to Paint a Room Many people look at their dull or scuffed-up walls and wonder what it would be like to have freshly painted, Patched Or Repaired Drywall If you have repaired a wall before painting , you will likely have patches of spackle or joint compound on the surface.

Major Change In Wall Color Painting contractors generally assume that a dark color will cover over a light color very effectively with one or two coats. Painting Over Oil-Based Or Glossy Paints In order for the new paint to perform well, the new paint must have a surface it can adhere to.

Stain Or Odor Coverage Some stains, such as greasy spots or crayon scribbles, will show through the new paint. Looking for professional advice? Feel free to call us anytime at , or click here to send us a message online Categories Painting. After it dries, they apply two lines of soils—coffee and a sootlike substance—and allow them to dry. Then they wash the painted panels, and use a colorimeter to measure the color of the paint on the rinsed areas. The closer the cleaned portions are to the original coat, the more stain-resistant the paint.

Here are five top paints from our tests, none of which require a primer, listed in alphabetical order. For more information, see our paint buying guide and our full interior paint ratings for details on nearly two dozen lines of paint, including those from Behr, Benjamin Moore, Kilz, PPG, Prestige Paints, Valspar, and more. For updates, feel free to follow me on Twitter haniyarae.

We respect your privacy. All email addresses you provide will be used just for sending this story. By Haniya Rae. Updated April 19, As a rule of thumb, budget for at least two coats. One pro tip to save money on larger projects is to buy the paint in 5-gallon buckets if possible. In some cases, priming is an absolute necessity.

Interior walls need to be spot-primed if they have stains, require extensive patching or drywall repairs, or are damaged. Typically, stains on interior walls are caused by water damage, smoke, mildew, and wood tannin bleeding. To neutralize interior wall stains, use an oil-based stain block primer from Kilz or Zinsser. Remember, stain-blockers are best used in rooms with smoke stains or drywall with water damage.

Also, there are instances where priming can only do so much, like if your basement has flooded. High-build acrylic latex primers also help hide more vivid wall colors like red or yellow. Because these wall colors are generally tough to cover, you should plan for a 2nd or 3rd coat. Luckily, oil-based paints are rarely used on walls these days. No question, painting a gloss finish requires more skill and patience than your typical home improvement project.

As a result, consider hiring a professional painter to do this type of work versus trying to DIY the job. Even painting with a semi-gloss finish gives most homeowners fits. Not to mention, the cleanup process after using any oil-based paints or primers is a giant headache.

After a good scrub to remove all of the mold spores, gently rinse with water and wait for the wall section to dry. Then lightly sand and apply a mold neutralizing oil-based primer. This will treat the surface before a finish coat is applied. Using an oil or solvent-based primer kills any remaining mold spores and prevents future mold from forming as well.

And since picking the perfect shade for your walls can be a pain, we highly recommend using our bathroom paint color guide to simplify the process. As a rule of thumb, the more sheen or shine a paint has, the better it will repel future moisture or water damage. We just opened our new location in Phoenix, Arizona.

If you live there or if you own a stucco house you might be wondering if you need to prime your house.

If your stucco is already painted, you should be fine without primer. However, our previous notes about gloss and oil-based paint still applies. A masonry primer should be your go-to for this kind of job. Last but not least, apply a full prime coat on any new drywall or recently skim-coated walls.

Make sure to use a specialized latex-based drywall primer that seals in the porous surface. These days, most new drywall primers are water-based. Generally speaking, low-VOC primers are better for the environment and result in fewer paint fumes. All unfinished wood or bare wood surfaces should always be primed prior to painting.

This goes for both interior and exterior paint projects. The reason you cannot skip bare wood priming is that wood is porous and has a grainy surface. Because primer contains high solids, it helps fill grains in the new wood. Similar to new drywall, raw wood soaks up paint like a sponge. As a result, your surface will look blotchy since pores in the woodwork unevenly absorb the paint.

More importantly, the painted wood will likely peel in two or three years without primer.