Painting - Correct Primer?

Hi,
I have recently moved and my new dining room has a very high white wainscoting, topped by red walls. I have an antique table that I will be using for my dining room table with glass over the top of it. The top of the table is a much deeper red than the current color of the walls and the walls have more orange and the table more blue. I want the color of the walls to coordinate better with the table.
I purchased the color I wanted in Behr Flat enamel. The current paint is flat. There are some areas where the red walls weren't painted all the way down to the white trim.
My plan was to prime these areas and then paint the entire thing with the new red paint. Then I thought that perhaps I should prime the entire thing and then use the new color so that it is all the same.
The question I have is this, I purchased 7 gallons of different colors of paint at the same time. I told the girl who was tinting the paint that I wanted gray primer for the red paint. I didn't realize until I got home that the primer she tinted is Interior Enamel Undercoat while the paint is Flat Enamel.
I was wondering if this primer is going to work ok for this paint? The primer sample does look a bit shinier than the paint does. I don't want the paint to look shiny.
Thanks for your help,
thartman

Welcome to the forums!

I'm not real familiar with behr coatings - I buy my paint at a real paint store - better quality!

Enamel undercoater is generally a better primer than your typical wall primer - it should do fine. It would also be best to use the same primer under all of your new color.

Hope this helps :)

Thanks for the help! I'm surprise you aren't familiar with Behr paints. JD Power & Associates just ranked Behr paints highest in customer satisfaction with interior paint.
Behr was founded in 1947 and is the largest provider of premium paints and stains to the North American DIY home improvement market.
Painting is not my profession but I do enjoy it. I've tried many different paints in all price categories. I've purchased my paint from what you refer to as a real paint store only to pay more money and not beat the quality I find in Behr.
I would appreciate it if you would share with me the brands of paint that you prefer. Maybe I just haven't found those yet.
Thanks again,
thartman

I've used mostly SWP although Ben Moore also has great coatings...... but SWP has more stores [and open longer hours] in the area I worked :D

I've heard lots of horror stories about behr :eek: . . I suspect the high approval rating is due to the fact that the majority of their customers have never used proffessional quality paint. Generally any coatings you buy at a big box store are on the shelf due to price not quality. Glidden makes some good coatings but not the ones found at a big box. Real paint stores also sell cheap paint - you need to use their mid line or better to get quality.

The majority of paint contractors [myself included] would buy our coatings at a big box if it would save us money - but no money is saved if it requires an extra coat or is harder [takes longer] to apply.

Wow! They just opened a SWP store here in the small town I live in. Before that we didn't have a real paint store. I'll have to go check it out. I still have two rooms I haven't bought paint for yet.

Thanks for your help!
thartman

Thanks for the help! I'm surprise you aren't familiar with Behr paints. JD Power & Associates just ranked Behr paints highest in customer satisfaction with interior paint.
Behr was founded in 1947 and is the largest provider of premium paints and stains to the North American DIY home improvement market.
Painting is not my profession but I do enjoy it. I've tried many different paints in all price categories. I've purchased my paint from what you refer to as a real paint store only to pay more money and not beat the quality I find in Behr.
I would appreciate it if you would share with me the brands of paint that you prefer. Maybe I just haven't found those yet.
Thanks again,
thartman

You need to understand that though the Behr brand name has existed since 1947,the Behr products you buy at HD are not the same as what Behr once made.Behr originally produced mostly refinishing and specialty products,even sandpaper until around ten years or so ago it was taken control of by Home Depot through what I understand was some sort of stock purchase etc that essentially gave operational control to HD.Regardless of the details,almost immediately Behr's product quality began to go down and complaints go up.

When a big box corporation gains control of a manufacturer as has happened with HD,Lowe's and Walmart to mention a few of the bigger names,product quality is shifted to meet competitive price points and to allow them to compete with each other on price.

What JD Power and other testing entities do is test products under laboratory conditions that do not often mimic real world conditions or the realities of home owner use etc.Anecdotal reports and customer reviews are much more realistic and you will find serious issues with big box controlled product regularly.

I've been in the retail end of home improvement and hardware all my life.I remember Behr when it was an independent company.Do yourself a favor and resist big box advertising and buy a product of actual quality from a retailer that can offer real knowledgeable sales assistance.

While Behr paint may have existed since the dawn of time, it currently produced by Behr Process Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Masco Corporation, a huge building products conglomerate. (They also own Delta Faucet, Merillat Cabinets, Arrow Fastener, KraftMaid Cabinets, BrassCraft, etc.)

We can suspect, although not confirm, that Behr products are simply a different part of the product line produced by the MasterChem division, makers of Kilz products. (Or maybe the other way around... Behr was acquired before MasterChem.)

Sherwin Williams, on the other hand, is solely a coatings industry conglomerate, primarily making paint (they make Pratt & Lambert, Duron, and Dutch Boy), but also Purdy, Thompson, Minwax, Krylon, etc.

This of course does not say anything definitive about the quality of the products (Thompson WaterSeal is still not worth the can it is packed in) but speaking for myself, I prefer the Professional-targeted products of SWP over the DIY-targeted products from Masco. (Behr and Kilz are pretty much DIY-only products.)

SirWired

Not to drag out this thread but to just comment/follow up on the previous post:The HD/Behr transaction was confirmed and publicized by industry publications at the time including Hardware Age magazine which I believe is no longer published.This took place at least a decade ago and maybe longer.I believe that the mentioned combinations all or mostly took place after that.This would suggest that HD may have a significant stake in the combined company.When they "invested" in Behr it was not a "buy out" but a large stock deal that included a deal to exclusively market Behr at HD.

This leads to two possibilities: that everytime you purchase any product that is produced by the combined company you are putting money in HD's pocket whether it is bought from them or not and that the somewhat lower product quality levels in products produced by this company that are highly competative such as paint products are a result of influence by HD's involvement.

There is nothing wrong with investing and some of this is sound business activity but it does make you think about what you buy and where that money ultimately may go.

Sorry to drift in this thread but I wanted to make a follow up comment.

Getting back to the theme of the post - I tried Behr a few years ago in my son's room just to see for myself. Never again! That stuff took me longer to paint, didn't cover nearly as well, and left me more tired. No wonder so many people hate to paint. If all I had to use was Behr, I'd rarely paint again.

Contrast that with SWP superpaint or their cashmere line. The cashmere took almost no effort at all. I used a medium green and it covered in one coat.

As for the ratings - I had a conversation a few years back with someone getting ready to paint. They loved the Behr and would never use SWP again. Why - it was strictly price. The SWP was twice what the Behr cost them. Even though the SWP went on better and was higher quality, price was the only issue.