Cheap paints and not using primers (or using primer/paint combinations)

 

• At this job, the homeowner and myself painted some of his old furniture white to give it a “fresh appearance.” Appearances aside, painting it required 3-5 coats of paint as the old paint continued to bleed through whatever we were covering. The lesson here is that it's better to use a separate primer and a good quality paint because otherwise you may end up re-applying many layers of cheap paint uselessly (I don’t remember if the final product showed bleed through of the original paint, we may have just given up at some point and let it go).