Should You Prime Before Painting?

As painters in Ottawa, we often get asked the same question a lot; do we have to prime the walls before we paint them? We typically specialize in interior residential re-paints, meaning we are painting walls that have previously been painted, and the majority of the time, we do not need to use a primer prior to re-painting a wall. We’ll go over some situations you might find yourself in when painting your home, and help you decide whether you should prime your painting surface. 

Painting New Drywall

If you have new drywall that needs to be painted, you may be asking yourself if it needs to be primed, or if you can go right ahead and just apply the paint. When painting new drywall, it is important to get good adhesion between the paint and the wall to avoid chipping and to get the proper colour out of your paint. When painting unpainted drywall, it is important to prime them prior to painting. 

Painting Bare Wood

If you find yourself with new trim, new baseboards, or any other wooden material in your house that needs to be painted, it can be tough to know if you need to prime the material prior to painting it. Similar to drywall, if the wood has not been painted before, it is important to prime the surface prior to applying your paint. Priming the wood prior to painting will fill in the grains in the wood and give a much more refined finish to the final paint job. This will ensure proper adhesion from the paint and will let your paint job last much longer than if you didn't prime.

Re-Painting Walls

If you have painted your walls before, or if you have hired a painter in Ottawa to paint your walls before, but you want to change the colour years later, it may have crossed your mind that you need to prime the wall first. Fortunately, it is not usually required to prime your walls prior to painting them if they have already been painted. Unless you are painting over a hard-to-cover colour, there should be no reason to have to prime your walls before painting them. 

Is Your Wall Dirty?

Painting over a wall with lots of stains and gunk on it can be tricky. If you hire a painting company in Ottawa and have them do a paint job, you want the finished product to last a long time. While you can paint over stains and other discoloration, it is possible that without primer those same stains will show through sooner than expected. We recommend using a good primer to cover any stains or discoloration to avoid this when painting your walls. If there are a lot of stains and you find yourself spot-priming a lot of the painting area, it may be best to prime the whole surface to avoid minor colour differences from painting over primed vs unprimed spots.

Painting Over Hard To Cover Colours

You may have painted your walls an ugly bright yellow years ago, or had a professional painting company come in and paint them a bright red colour and are finally deciding to change it up and re-paint your house. Some colours can be tricky to paint over, and the question of whether or not primer is needed becomes a bit more tricky. Sure, you could paint over the walls with no primer, and the paint job will last just as long. The issue is you may need to use 3 or more coats of paint to cover some colours. In that situation, it may be more cost-effective to make the first coat primer, and the next two coats of paint your higher quality gallons of paint. Rather than spending $100 per gallon of coloured paint for 3 coats, you can use a $ 20 per gallon primer, followed by two coats of coloured paint, and get just the same result, with the same effort of work, but for a bit less money.

Looking To Hire A Painting Company In Ottawa?

Does painting your home feel a bit too daunting, or maybe you just want to make sure it’s done properly and will last a long time? If you are in the Ottawa area, consider calling Clear Cut Painting to come by and give you a quote to paint your home. We only use the best quality paint and take great care in both the prep and painting process. Contact us today for a free quote on your painting project!