This painting trick will save you time and money when painting pretty much anything in your home! This is a MUST read before you paint anything.
A huge thank you to Sherwin Williams for providing the paint for our kitchen renovation!
When I painted our bathroom cabinets a deep teal a year ago, our painter friend Josh mentioned one little painting tip that would have saved me SO much time and paint (and money).
You can see in the below photo that even after several coats of paint, the primer was still showing through. Those poor cabinets got so many coats of paint to get the color even (granted, better quality paint like Sherwin Williams would have helped!).
But I could have saved myself the headache — all I had to do was tint my primer.
This is simple to do — just add some of your paint color to your primer, mix well, and prime. If I had added some of that deep teal to my primer, it would have been MUCH easier to paint over without that glaring white shining through. Less time, fewer coats of paint, and more money in my pocket (since I had to buy another quart of paint to finish the job!).
Now that we’re full force into our kitchen renovation, I knew right away that tinting my primer was going to be key in saving time and money when painting the cabinets. So I mixed in some of the Sherwin Williams “Drizzle” sample that I’d picked up, and primed my cabinets with two coats.
This morning, when I went to paint the first coat of actual paint color, it was amazing how well the paint went on over the lighter blue primer (having great paint helps!!). I could probably stop at one coat, but I’ll put on two for good measure.
Now it’s your turn! Save yourself some time and money — tint your primer!
Comments & Reviews
Kara says
It would have been great to see how the cabinets looked after one coat of paint after you used the tinted primer. If you didn’t want to share the whole kitchen until it’s done, a close-up of one cabinet would be good, as I really wanted to see the result after reading about it. What ratio of paint to primer do you recommend using? Definitely looking forward to trying this next time I need to paint!
Melissa S says
Great idea, thank you.
Diane | An Extraordinary Day says
Even better… have the paint store tint your primer for you. In fact, my paint store suggested they do that for me. That was super helpful when I had a brand new house full of trim and windows and doors to paint. Also… sanding and tacking between coats gives a finish that is pure perfection. Can’t wait to see your finished project!
Morgan says
Wow! What an awesome tip! This is such a simple step, but it looks like it has made all the difference in the overall look of the paint job. This was a great idea! Thanks so much for sharing!
Linda says
I carefully labeled the doors, but didn’t ever see the advice to label hinges. Now I pay for that with several cabinets that are just IMPOSSIBLE!
Dawn Barry says
Good day! Thanks I have landed here. I like the content you have shared. Actually, we just bought our first house in Boston for 1 year ago, the living room is great with decor arts and stuffs but all the walls are brown color, two cabinets are made of pine and varnished with warm pinkish white. We are about to rent some equipment from a painter near us to tackle painting our home and getting rid of these colors! So a lot of painting job will be still top priority this year. I will definitely be back here.
Steff C says
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