Pro Handyman Blog

Priming before painting can be looked upon in a couple of different ways. Priming the walls lays down a nice base in which to paint your final color. It can cover dark colors, stains, dirt and whatnot so that your paint shows it’s color nicely. The color should be very consistent and predictable.

The downside is that it is also a pain to paint the same surface twice (or more), and it adds to the cost of the job both in dollars and time. A good quality primer will cost more than paint, particularly if you are buying paint in 5 gallon buckets.

There are products that have primer and paint mixed in so that you theoretically don’t have to paint several coats, but these are fairly expensive. From a cost perspective, it would be cheaper to use multiple coats of paint than a primer and paint all-in-one product, but it should save you some time.

If you choose not to prime before painting, you may end up painting several coats of paint anyway, as the first coat will act as a primer, but it will be harder to delineate where one swath of the roller left off and where the other should begin. Painting on top of a white primer base is pretty obvious.

For a more predictable, consistent finished product, priming before painting is the way to go. However, if you are looking to save a little money, you could try foregoing the priming.