New Rules for Painting a Room

by Andrea Hermitt | More from this Blogger

23 Sep 2009 11:22 PM

For the last few decades, rules for painting a home have been, repair holes and cracks, clean dirty walls, use a primer-sealer to paint over dark walls, or walls with markings on them, then paint several coats.

Now, the the rules are: repair holes and cracks, wipe down excessively dirty walls, and paint. What happened to the primer step? There is now a paint with primer in it!

This week we painted over a mural I painted in my daughters room when we moved into the house. She was six at the time, and now she is 13. I had been putting off repainting the room because I didn't want to deal with all of the steps of painting over the murals, from sanding, to priming, to painting several coats to cover the old design.

My husband decided to bite the bullet to update out daughters room and went to purchase paint at the Hardware store. I expected him to bring home Two cans of primer and the paint colors for her room. I insisted he had made a mistake when he got home as there was no primer. Then he showed me the new paint with the primer built in.

Behr Premium Paint Ultra is a paint and primer all in one:

"A paint and primer in one, BEHR Premium Plus Ultra™ Interior is the latest innovation from BEHR Paints, the largest provider of premium paints and stains to the North American Do-It-Yourself (DIY) home improvement market. With a paint that covers existing or uncoated surfaces without a separate primer, even for drastic color changes, BEHR has reduced the need for multiple products, saving homeowners time and money."

So after painting over an elaborate Castle mural,and faux painted stone wall, which was accented with permanent marker (a mural decorating trick I use), I am pleased to say that the mural was covered with just one coat of paint and we have a beautiful dark purple wall that took only one coat to paint it with no signs of the old mural showing through. With the money we saved on not having to buy primer, my husband purchased more shades of paint to make the room more interesting... (You can see in the picture I am working on a cool stencil design for the room.)

If you liked this you should also read my blogs at the homeschool blog, the parents blog, and the frugal blog. You can read my recent posts here.

Also Read:

Transitioning from Nursery to Big Kid's Room

Three DIY Projects that Will Save You Money

The Paint Job

Learn more about Andrea Hermitt

Andrea Hermitt is a native New Yorker currently residing in GA. She has been married for over 16 years and has two teenage children.

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