Kitchens and bathrooms are both high moisture areas, especially if your bathroom has a lack of ventilation and airflow. If your bathroom does not have a fan or window, paint failure is almost bound to happen. Common ways to combat high moisture areas and keep them dry include:

• Having good sources of ventilation like a high powered vent in bathrooms without a window. Opening windows in smaller bathrooms will also help to prevent moisture build-up
• Upgrading bathroom wall and ceiling paint to a high-grade latex enamel or paint
• Adding mildewcide to paint and primer to ensure mold blocking

Often customers want to know how many coats of paint to apply to the interior of their home.

• The first coat is primer specific. oil, latex, color blocking, odor-blocking, shellac primer should be applied if the paint is anything other than latex.
• If the current paint job is in good shape, generally two coats of paint will do the job. Unless, your new color is a brighter color, like yellow, red, blue, green. They generally require an additional coat (third coat).

How To Treat Mold And Mildew (ex. Shower)

• Clean it with bleach
• Prime it
• Add mildewcide additive to an interior premium paint (upgrade the paint if needed)

A common question we get asked is, “Once Painting Is Complete, Do You Put My House Back In Order?” Prior to the project starting, we ask that everything gets taken off the wall as our focus is mainly on cleaning and prepping the walls for painting. If needed we slide furniture and belongings out of the way to create a working space, which can fluctuate on a job depending on the layout. After we finish we put the area back the same way we found it. But, it’s the homeowner’s responsibility to refurnish and hang paintings and photos to their liking if different from the original layout.

With so many different primers to choose from, how do you know the difference between each one and which one is right for you?

• PVA – Drywall and Wallboard: Although any latex paint can be used over raw drywall, the first coat will only be used to seal and absorb, essentially a sacrificial coat. PVA is a cost-effective, the first coat that saves money and seals the wallboard to prepare two finish paint coats.
• Oil-based – Raw Wood /Stain-Blocking: Using oil over raw wood helps block the natural tannin bleed from wood. Oil is also used when going from a stained surface to a painted surface.
• Shellac: Shellac has been used for centuries to seal the wood and other surfaces. Perfect for interior paint jobs as shellac-based primers are possibly the best stain-blocking primers. They work well on severe water and smoke damage to walls and surfaces — they even seal in smells from smoke damage. They also are excellent at preventing normal water, rust, smoke stains, and wood tannins from bleeding through the new paint. They work well on wood, metal, plaster, and even plastic and are fast-drying and highly adhesive. They also can be used with both oil-based and latex paints.
• Bonding:  When you’ve got a challenging surface—whether it’s a slick substrate or a compromised one—a bonding or adhesive primer is the go-to product of choice. Highly engineered, it’s a coating that promotes adhesion to the surface or existing coating and the new coat that you want to apply. A bonding primer is also used to encapsulate surfaces with lead paint present.
• Fiberglass: UMA’s advanced technology has both primer and adhesive-like properties. A quick-drying, white bonding primer/sealer that provides excellent adhesion, and it can be tinted. For tough-to-paint surfaces: glass, tile, Formica, metals, plastics, wood, and other construction materials including Kynar® and silicone polyester pre-coated siding.

Buying primer versus paint and primer all-in-one, what’s the difference? Priming is a general term. It’s not specific to one product; all it means is that depending on the substrate, it will prime the surface in preparation for a specific top coat.

Paint and primer all in one mean that the grade of paint may be high enough to get it done in one coat when covering a previously painted surface. It won’t work on raw surfaces such as Metallic surfaces (steel, sheet metal, etc.), raw wood (tannin Bleedthrough), water damage, smoke damage, or fiberglass. They all require surface-specific primers. It essentially only works over standard latex paints.

You should repaint your home any time you see paint failing, chipping, cracking, fading, or discoloration. Each house is different so we often recommend going through a small checklist every so often just to keep your house up to date. Some area’s to look at with attention to detail includes:

• Obvious wear and tear: (Near coat racks, high traffic, baseboards, high sunlight areas (fading), children’s bedrooms, high moisture, aesthetics (the color pallet and style) value of the home
• High traffic areas such as hallways, living rooms, and dining rooms start to show wear and tear
• Baseboards, crown molding, and other interior millwork that starts to separate from the wall (failed caulking)
• High moisture areas such as bathrooms and washrooms start to show signs of paint failure. Mold and Mildew, paint delamination, bubbling or peeling
• And visually, when interior colors become bland or outdated