Category: Primer Tips
Tips for Painting Walls and Cabinets
June 1, 2020
Painting your walls or cabinets is an easy and low-cost way to update any room in your house, and most painting projects can be completed in just one weekend. Equally as important as choosing the right paint color is ensuring you prime first with the right primer. Without priming before painting, you risk poor paint adhesion and previous colors or stains seeping through and ruining your new paint color.
Using the right primer ensures that your topcoat color will appear on the walls as you expected it to. If you’re painting over a darker colored wall with a new lighter shade, KILZ 3® Premium Primer works to block previous dark paint colors from seeping through and changing the look of your new paint. When painting over a light color with a new darker hue, it’s still equally important to prime first. KILZ 2® All-Purpose primer is a great choice for light to dark color changes. And if your walls have tough or exceptionally dark stains or damage from smoke or water, KILZ® Original Primer and KILZ Restoration are both formulated to block severe stains.
Priming before painting ensures your paint color pops!
What if you’re painting cabinets, do you need to prime? If you want excellent paint adhesion and for your colors to appear in their truest hue – the answer is yes! Primer also makes your paint job durable, and that is especially important in high-traffic areas like kitchens. You often find cabinets in kitchens, bathrooms and laundry rooms, and these areas of the home are subject to fluctuating temperatures and humidity levels that can make paint peel. For these spaces, a primer like KILZ Mold & Mildew dries with a mildew resistant primer finish that helps protect and extend the life of your paint.
When painting cabinets, priming first ensures excellent adhesion and truer color from your topcoat.
While priming before painting can seem like an extra step, it’s a vital part of the painting process!
Always remember to refer to our website kilz.com or product back labels for additional information on which primer is right for your project and detailed instructions on how to apply our products.
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Top Primers for Kitchen Projects
May 1, 2020The key ingredient to a successful kitchen painting project is the right primer. KILZ® makes a family of hardworking primers for use on a variety of surfaces and substrates, and for best results it’s essential to choose a primer that’s specifically formulated for your type of project. Today we’re talking all about kitchens and the top primers for kitchen cabinets and walls.
One fundamental benefit of most primers is that they make your paint job more durable. Kitchens are typically high-traffic areas and are often exposed to fluctuating temperatures, which can have an impact on the life of your paint job. Using KILZ® 3 Premium Primer before you paint, a product known for its exceptional adhesion and durability, can help ensure your paint job lasts.
When painting your kitchen cabinets and walls, it’s important to keep in mind that kitchens can often be exposed to high humidity and moisture. These factors can negatively impact your painted surfaces if they’re not properly primed first. Using KILZ® Kitchen & Bath Primer on both cabinets and walls creates a mildew resistant primer film, and also offers excellent adhesion to most interior surfaces.
Now that you’ve found the right primer for your kitchen renovation, it’s time to start cooking up color ideas! For a look at our favorite calming and energizing paint colors, check out this recent post.
Always remember to refer to our website kilz.com or product back labels for additional information on which primer is right for your project and detailed instructions on how to apply our products.
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How Primer Affects Paint Color
April 15, 2020Springtime and DIY projects go hand in hand, and this spring season it feels like that sentiment rings truer than ever before. With all of us staying home to practice safe social distancing we have a lot more time on our hands, making it the perfect time to tackling a DIY painting project. But before you paint, don’t forget to prime!
While the paint’s job is all about color, the primer’s job is to prepare the surface for painting and make that color the best it can be. Even with a simple color change where you’re covering an existing lighter color with another color, it wouldn’t be advisable to paint without priming. If you paint without priming first, the end result could be a color that is a slightly different shade that the color you selected. For a simple color change from walls to furniture re-painting projects, KILZ 2® All-Purpose Primer is right for the job.
There are also certain surface types that are extremely porous, including brick and wood. If you paint on these surfaces without priming, there is a good chance the paint will seep into the surface – and that means your color won’t be as vibrant or true as you were expecting. When you’re looking to seal porous surfaces, KILZ® 1 Standard Primer and KILZ 2 All-Purpose are both great primer choices.
And it goes without saying that when painting over a darker color with a new, fresh-as-spring lighter shade, you definitely want to prime first. Otherwise shades like deep red will show through and change the tone of the new paint color you selected. If you’re going from a darker to a lighter color in your DIY painting project, KILZ® 3 Premium Primer has a thick, high-hide formula that is up to the task.
Prime first for dark to light color changes!
In all of these cases, priming before painting lessens the number of topcoats required – saving you time and ensuring your finished DIY project is the color you desired!
Always remember to refer to our website kilz.com or product back labels for additional information on which primer is right for your project and detailed instructions on how to apply our products.
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Truer Color Starts Here
March 30, 2020Imagine that you’ve spent hours scrolling through social media sites and flipping through magazines, on the hunt for the perfect paint color. Eventually, you zero in on a color family and visit a home improvement store to select a few paint chips or samples to take home. And finally, you’ve done it! You have your perfect paint color chosen and you’re ready to transform your space. But what if, when it’s finally on your walls, it doesn’t appear to be the color you selected? If you don’t use the right primer before painting, this could happen to you.
When painting a light color over an existing dark color, a primer with a high-hiding formula is recommended. KILZ® 3 Premium primer is a water-based primer that has a thicker formula with enhanced hiding. Priming a dark wall with KILZ 3 Premium before you paint over it with a lighter color will assist in a truer and richer color from your topcoat.
Specific surface types you might be painting can also affect how the final paint color turns out if the right primer isn’t applied first. If not properly sealed, porous surface like brick can soak up a lot of paint and cost you valuable time and money. Not to mention that if not properly primed, the typical red color of most brick can change the appearance of your paint color if the brick is not primed before it’s painted. For brick surfaces, we often recommend KILZ 2 All-Purpose or KILZ 3 Premium, depending on the color and current state of the brick surface.
New drywall is another porous surface on which the right primer can make a big difference. When painting over new drywall, we recommend priming first with KILZ® PVA Drywall Primer – a fast-drying, interior water-based primer formulated to prime and seal new, uncoated drywall. KILZ 1 Standard primer is another great primer to use on drywall.
For almost any surface you’re working with, priming before painting is key to ensure that the paint color you selected will show up in its truest state
Always remember to refer to our website kilz.com or product back labels for additional information on which primer is right for your project and detailed instructions on how to apply our products.
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Truer Coverage Starts Here
March 30, 2020When you’ve finally found that perfect paint color for your walls or furniture re-painting project, the last thing you want is a pre-existing stain to seep through and ruin your new color! Even light to moderate stains like scuff marks or crayon marks can bleed through paint, so it’s important to prime first to create a barrier. If you’re dealing with a lighter stain, KILZ 2® All-Purpose primer is a great choice. A water-based formula with enhanced hiding, KILZ 2 All-Purpose is formulated to block light to medium stains and hide previous colors.
A severe stain calls for a heavy-duty primer – and we have more than one that are up for the job! KILZ® Primer is a preferred choice of pros for stains caused by fires, floods, persistent exposure to pets or smoke stains from fire damage, soot and charring. Stain blocking primers also work great on permanent marker, grease and nicotine stains. KILZ® Original, trusted by pros for over 40 years, has excellent sealing and adhesion properties and is formulated to block heavy stains. Another great choice is KILZ Restoration, a water-based primer that offers the performance of a traditional oil and shellac-based primer. A heavy stain and odor blocker, KILZ Restoration can block stains from tannin, water, fire damage, smoke, nicotine and more.
From colorful crayon stains to unsightly smoke damage, truer coverage starts with KILZ primers.
Always remember to refer to our website kilz.com or product back labels for additional information on which primer is right for your project and detailed instructions on how to apply our products.
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Renovating After Natural Disasters
March 30, 2020Fixing or rebuilding a home after a natural disaster like a flood, hurricane or fire is no easy task. In the worst-case scenarios, the help of a professional contractor might be in order. But if you’re looking to DIY your renovation after a disaster has left your home with water, fire or smoke damage, KILZ® Primers can help! Trusted by pros for over 40 years, KILZ primers are often the go-to products for tackling stains caused by fires, floods and persistent exposure to smoke.
If you’ve got your work cut out for you after a flood or fire has necessitated a renovation, KILZ® Original Interior Primer is made for the job. This hardworking oil-based primer is formulated to block heavy stains including those caused by water or smoke, and its fast-drying formula can help you get on with your renovation project faster.
For restoration jobs on the outside of your home, KILZ Original Interior | Exterior Primer offers the same power of KILZ Original Interior Primer in an all-weather formula. Offering excellent adhesion and durability, KILZ Original Interior | Exterior can be used on wood, drywall, plaster, stucco, brick, masonry, paneling and more.
Always remember to refer to our website kilz.com or product back labels for additional information on which primer is right for your project and detailed instructions on how to apply our products.
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Odor Blocking Primers for Fresh as Spring Painting Projects
March 16, 2020Spring brings new beginnings and is often the perfect time to tackle a painting project you’ve been putting off. If you have a room renovation project that includes the added challenge of ridding the space of stale smells or bad odors, KILZ® Primers can help. From pet odor to the lingering smell of smoke (even long after the smoker is gone!), unpleasant odors can get stuck in your home and seem near impossible to remove.
Odor may penetrate fresh paint, so simply repainting the walls will likely leave you with a still smelly space. For a room that looks and smells as fresh spring, we recommend priming before painting. Priming provides a barrier that prevents odor from penetrating fresh paint and KILZ offers several primers with the ability to block medium to severe odors. So which primer is right for your project?
If you’re looking for a heavy-duty odor blocking primer, KILZ® Original primer is a great choice. Trusted by pros for over 40 years, it has excellent sealing properties and can block heavy odors and stains.
Working on a project outdoors? KILZ® Original Interior | Exterior primer offers the heavy-duty power of KILZ Original in an all-weather formula with excellent adhesion to both interior and exterior surfaces.
For spaces or areas that might be sensitive to solvent odors, KILZ® Original Low Odor is an interior oil-based stain and odor blocking primer that puts off less odor than typical oil-based primers.
Looking for a water-based primer? KILZ Restoration® is a new generation water-based primer, sealer and stain blocker that offers the performance of traditional oil and shellac-based primers. It tackles tough stains and seals persistent pet, food and smoke odors. It can also be used to block odors from subfloor when replacing carpet or wood flooring.
If your next painting project includes tackling lingering odors, you can breathe easy knowing that KILZ primers can help you get the job done.
Always remember to refer to our website kilz.com or product back labels for additional information on which primer is right for your project and detailed instructions on how to apply our products.
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These Three Rooms Call for a Primer that provides a Mildew-Resistant Primer Finish
February 12, 2020We believe that every project is worth using KILZ® brand primer. Priming before painting is what the professional painters generally like to do, and we would not recommend any other way.
If you talk to a professional painter about priming, they will tell you that certain rooms in the home call for primers with specific properties. From stain blocking to hiding a previous paint color, the KILZ brand has a primer to solve the most common and the toughest painting problems. In this post, we’re going to look at three rooms that all share one specific use case – the need for primer in a moister prone environment.
Mildew can be a common problem in areas of the home where there may be excess moisture. In these rooms, consider using a primer that will provide a mildew resistant primer finish. The first room in which we would most often recommend using a primer with a mildew resistant finish is the bathroom. From small powder rooms to grand master bathrooms, this area of the home is subject to high levels of moisture and humidity nearly every day.
KILZ® Kitchen & Bath Primer is another great choice, as this product not only offers a mildew-resistant primer finish but also provides excellent adhesion and stain blocking properties. We recently used KILZ Kitchen & Bath in a pretty in pink bathroom renovation, you can check that out here.
That leads us into the next room in the home on our list, the kitchen! We recommend priming both your walls and kitchen cabinets with a mildew-resistant primer like KILZ Kitchen & Bath or KILZ 3® Premium. If you’re interested to see a step by step kitchen renovation using KILZ 3 Premium, check out this recent post on a Colorful Kitchen Cabinet Transformation.
Last but not least, there is one more room found in most homes that calls for the use of primer with a mildew resistant finish. The laundry room! This small space is often overlooked when it comes time to think about repainting, but it is one room in particular where you definitely want to use the right primer.
Similar to kitchens, we recommend priming the walls and any cabinets in the laundry room with KILZ 3 Premium or KILZ Kitchen & Bath. If you’re looking to refresh your laundry room, keep an eye out for a light and airy laundry room makeover coming up on the blog in March!
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How to Choose the Right Primer for Your Paint Project
January 31, 2020Do your New Year’s resolutions include taking on that painting project you’ve been putting off? Or maybe you have a list of several different DIY home improvement projects on your list to complete in 2020. No matter the size or scope of your project, taking the time to do proper prep work will ensure results that you can be proud of for years to come. Prep can seem like a time-consuming extra step, but trust the pros, it’s worth the time spent.
If your next DIY venture includes painting, the first step is choosing the right primer for your project. The KILZ® brand offers a family of primers to help you complete a wide range of painting projects and tackle a wide variety of common painting problems. With so many primers to choose from, how do you know which is right for your project? To start, assess the type of surface you will be painting.
If you just moved into a new house or completed an addition and you’re painting new drywall, KILZ® PVA Drywall Primer or KILZ® 1 Standard Interior Primer are both made for the job.
Perhaps you’re painting a surface that ordinary paint might not stick to, such as a slick glossy surface, aluminum, vinyl, ceramic tile or glass. In that case, KILZ® Adhesion Interior/Exterior Primer is an excellent choice.
Pro painters and DIYers alike are often in need of a primer that offers multiple surface solutions – which is why KILZ 2® All-Purpose Primer is the choice of many! A fast drying, water-based multi-surface primer-sealer-stain blocker, it offers excellent adhesion, a mildew resistance primer film and can block light to medium stains like felt marker or minor water stains. It’s also a good choice for a simple color change, to ensure the truest color from your new topcoat.
And for projects that require even heavier lifting, KILZ Restoration™ offers the performance of a traditional oil-based primer in a water-based formula and can tackled the toughest odors, stains and even fire damage.
For those taking on more complex projects, including blocking smoke or pet odors, covering dark paint colors or heavy stains, there is a KILZ® Primer for you too! KILZ 3™ Premium is one of our more heavy-duty and high hiding formulas, making it ideally suited for blocking old dark colors or covering substantial stains.
If you’re still unsure what primer to use for your next project, answer these simple questions below and don’t be afraid to ask a friendly pro at your local hardware or home improvement store for help.
Choosing the Right Primer:
- Identify the surface type you will be painting.
- Assess any problems you need to tackle, such as stain or odor blocking, and determine the severity of the issue.
- Take into account any unique scenarios like needing a mildew resistance finish coat (good to keep in mind when painting moisture prone areas like bathrooms and laundry rooms), or if you’re covering a dark paint color with a new lighter hue.
Always remember to refer to our website kilz.com or product back labels for additional information on which primer is right for your project and detailed instructions on how to apply our products.
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