The Beginner’s Guide to Primer — When You Need It… and When You Don’t

Ep16 The Beginner’s Guide To Primer - When You Need It…and When You Don’t

Val Frania

Hey, friends, welcome back. I'm your host, Val Frania. And today we're starting something I'm really excited about a brand new teaching series called the Primer Power Series. Now, primer may not sound glamorous. It's not the fun part of flipping. It's not choosing paint colors, staging your piece, or revealing a dramatic before or after. But primer is one of those foundational make or break parts of furniture flipping that separates frustrated beginners from confident, profitable furniture artists. So over the next five episodes, I'm going to walk you through everything you need to know about primer in a simple, friendly, step by step way that makes it feel easy and doable. Because it absolutely is. And we're even going to get into some of the nitty gritty details that most flippers even the most experienced, don't know about.

Today we're starting with question every beginner asks. Do I really need primer? So let's get into it. What primer actually does in real people terms, primer has three big jobs. It helps your paint stick. Paint doesn't automatically cling to furniture, especially to glossy furniture, finishes, laminates, or pre-cat coatings. Primer gives your paint something to hold on to. It blocks stains and bleed through. This one surprises beginners. Bleed through isn't your paint's fault, it's the wood's natural oils coming through, and it gives you a fresh, even foundation. Primer hides, repairs, evens out texture just a bit, and helps your final coat look smooth and professional. So think of primer as the supportive friend who makes your paint look good. I have a little story for you so you can learn from my mistake.

Okay, let me tell you about a piece I did in my early flipping days. It's one of the first pieces I ever did. It was a beautiful pine dresser. I knew nothing about primer, nothing about wood, tannins, nothing about bleed through. I painted it white with Annie Sloan chalk paint, waxed it, because back then, waxing was quite a bit of the go- to back then, and put it in my dining room. It looked so nice for several years. And then slowly, little by little, yellow spots started appearing. First and knot here, and then a streak there. Suddenly my beautiful white dresser looked like a spotted leopard. If you've ever seen yellow circles or streaks show up on painted furniture long after you finished it, that's bleed through. And pine is notorious for it. I didn't know it then. I certainly know it now. And yes, that dresser is now sitting on my to do list, sitting in my dining room area reminding me that I didn't know what I was doing when I got started. It's patiently waiting for me to bring it back to life with proper priming this time.

So when do you absolutely need primer? Here's the simple version. If your surface is slick, glossy, red toned, or even repaired, you're going to need primer. So let's break it down. One slick or glossy surfaces laminates, melamine, Ikea furniture, factory finishes anything shiny paint won't stick by itself. You'll need primer with bite. Two: woods that bleed. Pine. Oak. Cherry. Mahogany. Cedar. Knotty woods. If the wood is red, orange or yellow, prime it. Trust me on that one. Number three. Raw wood. Raw wood absorbs paint unevenly. Primer stops blotchiness. For repaired areas. Wood filler. Patching. Sanding. You need primer to blend those things with the rest of the surface. And primer really does help in that respect.

Okay, five: unknown history pieces. If you found it on marketplace or the curb, prime it. Okay. When can you skip primer? There are a few moments when primer isn't necessary, and you know the better you get at flipping, the more information you take in, the more pieces that you've done. This will get easier for you to know when you can and when you can't. So, for example, when can you skip primer? The furniture is already painted with a matte finish and you know it's solid. You know it's not going to chip or peel off that kind of thing. Light colored, real wood, no risk of bleed through. Once you get to know your woods, you're going to understand that. Your paint has strong adhesion properties? That helps tremendously, and you've cleaned and scuffed sanded properly. But here's the beginner rule when in doubt, prime. You'll never regret priming, but you will regret if you skip it when it's needed.

Honestly, the paint companies really don't tell you the full truth because they want to sell their products. I do love paint companies, I really do. But when they tell you no prep needed. Yeah, they're mostly talking about walls, not furniture. Furniture has hand oils, furniture polish, dust, wax, grease, tannins, glossy coatings. Furniture is not drywall. Prep isn't optional. Prep is respect for your future self. That future entrepreneur that you are becoming. In the Blueprint I've mentioned the Blueprint before, the Furniture Flipping Blueprint, my membership, I show step by step how to prep the smart way so you don't waste time. But if you're listening right now, just know, If someone says no prep needed, smile politely and prep anyway.

Let me tell you a funny story about my DH. He and I see the world a little differently. I can look at a house and see it in another color or a different type of siding. I can see different color roof or different type of roof. I can even see if landscaping were added. I can picture a garage built next to it with a new cemented driveway. I've just always been able to do that. I can look at a piece of furniture and instantly imagine new colors, new design, new hardware, a completely new updated look. D.H.. Well, not so much. He says, "I can only see it as it is, but I'll take your word for it." Until one day a coworker told him about a mid-century modern, MCM, dresser for sale for ten bucks. Ten dollars. D.H. brought it home, and let me tell you, it was the ugliest dresser I'd ever seen. I stood there thinking, what on earth am I going to do with this? D.H. prepped it up, brought it to me, and said, here you go. So I redesigned it, I painted it, he had primed it properly. I ended up selling that dresser for four hundred and seventy nine dollars. Then that same customer brought over a tall dresser and asked me to paint it to match. She paid me another four hundred and seventy nine dollars from a ten dollar piece. The piece that I thought was hideous and the reason that transformation worked. Good prep, proper primer, and of course, a new look. Doing it right pays off, literally. And as I collected that money from her, I wasn't concerned that anything was going to go wrong because we had done it right.

Now, let me tell you a little secret. These days, my DH handles most of my prep and almost all of my priming. We do prefer oil based primers for certain jobs because they're so effective. The cleanup? Yeah, not really my thing. I don't like cleaning up after oil based. So you know, DH doesn't mind it. So he's become the official oil based primer guy of our workshop. He likes to do several pieces at a time to minimize his effort. When I do prime, I wear gloves and a mask because I take my health seriously and I want you to do the same. So don't forget to use protection gear.

At our annual Blueprint meetup, DH actually shares some of his workshop wisdom with our members and they just love him. He keeps it simple, practical, and real, and he's always looking for ways to save money, cut time, make things go easier, which I totally appreciate. So here are some final thoughts. If you only take one thing from this episode, let it be this: primer isn't extra busywork, it's the foundation that protects everything else you do and may prevent extra work, because you might have to redo a piece that falls apart after you're done with it, you know, due to a surface or design fail because you didn't prime.

When you get primer right, everything else gets easier. Paint goes on, smoother finishes look more professional. Often, you don't have to do as many coats of paint depending on your color, that kind of thing. Pieces tend to sell faster, your confidence grows, and buyers can tell the difference because your piece is top notch. And this is just the beginning of our Primer Power Series. In episode seventeen, we're breaking down the five types of primer in real people terms, so you know exactly which one to use every time. And if you want help building your flipping confidence from the ground up, you're always welcome inside Furniture Flipping Blueprint as well, where we teach beginners how to flip smarter, faster, and to actually enjoy it.

Now in the show notes, I have a link for you that you can download a workbook. A workbook that goes along with this series. If you're not a note taker, this will help fill in those kind of blanks for you. And there's also some other things in here for you to give it a little bit more thought. So download that workbook and you can use it throughout this series. Look in the show notes and have a blessed day and we'll see you in episode seventeen.