Painting some wood paneling in my finished basement (the type that just goes up 1/2 the wall).?
Question:It has a varnished finish to it. Do I need to put a primer on before I paint?
Answers:
We actually just did this project ourselves a couple of years ago. We changed a 1970's dark wood basement from disco dungeon look to bright, clean and nice looking in only two or three weekends. You'll need to get a good primer (they make different kinds), probably one designed for a "gloss" base surface would work best over varnish. Then, just paint away. I wouldn't recommend skipping the primer step. It really helps the paint stay put if the wall gets bumped.
HTH!
yes you can use kilz
Yes, you should use a good primer such as Kilz or Benz. It's also a good idea to clean the wainscoting first with tri sodium phosphate (TSP) which you can buy at Home Depot or probably most specialty paint stores.
It'd probably be better to strip the varnish off. Since it's in a basement try to get a stripper that doesn't have noxious fumes; there are a few on the market but generally they don't do quite as good of a job with only one application. It may take a few tries to get it all off, then you can put primer on the bare wood and paint away.
If you absolutely don't want to mess with stripping it off you could try sanding it off. That will probably be quite time consuming though, even with a power sander. Messy too. If you don't want to strip it and don't want a big mess from sanding then you could try just lightly sanding the wood to make it rough. Once you've done that, apply a good amount of primer and then paint. I'm not entirely sure this will give the best result but it may work.
Good luck!
i suggest u undercoat/primer at least twice and lightly sand in between coats then 2 coats of required colour!
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