{My Favorite Tinted Primer}

One of the questions i get asked most often is, “how come when i look close at your pics of furniture, i don’t see any white primer where you have distressed it?”

That’s because, for the most part i don’t like to see white primer showing through, and whenever i can, i avoid it.

There are a ton of options for primer, we could talk for days about all the primer options – seriously.  And what a fascinating conversation that would be ;)

 So, if your ok with white primer showing through, then that’s cool.  And sometimes i do too – it all just depends really, just personal choice i guess.

But, if you want to avoid seeing white primer, you have options people.

You can have your primer tinted the same color as your paint, like i did for this piano.  So that way, when it was distressed, no white primer showed.  In this case, i had to use an oil based primer because of the dreaded bleed through, so i just had them tint by oil primer to the color of my paint.  (Use oil based or shellac based primer to seal the wood to prevent bleed through)

For this yellow table i used a water based primer tinted to a dark brown.  The table started out a medium oak color, but when its distressed, the dark brown showed through giving it the look of darker wood underneath because of the dark primer – i like this look because it creates more contrast when its distressed.  If i left the table the medium oak color, painted it the yellow and then distressed it, there wouldn’t have been a lot of contrast between the yellow paint and the medium oak color, not to mention the white primer mixed in there.   Again, i think this is just personal choice.  I like to use the brown primer to my advantage to create the look that i like since i need to use primer anyways.

SO, where and how do i get brown primer like you!!  I used to get all my brown primer from Lowes, i used the Valspar brand and i LOVED it.  It worked really well and it was cheap.  But sadly it was discontinued a few months ago – it was a sad, sad day.  I get emails ALL THE TIME that you went to lowes and the dude wont tint your primer that dark, that’s because they no longer carry a deep base primer so it cant be done.  Boo.

BUT, if you have a Sherwin Williams close, they do carry a deep base, water based primer that can be tinted dark.  Its about $8 more per gallon that Lowes was, but its worth it to me to get the look that i like.  The color that i have it tinted too is a lowes color, but here is the formula that Sherwin Williams uses…

There you have it, that’s my secret primer that i love so much.  I use it on almost everything – i say almost because i cant tell you all my secrets can i?!   ;)