Farrow and Ball - primer?

[KarriTreeSullivan]

Hello, I've ordered some farrow and ball paint to paint some internal doors and skirting. It's all currently painted white, previous owners have done a very good job, its very neat, tidy, smooth etc. I've bought modern eggshell in railings and kittiwake. I'm wondering about the F&B primer, obviously they highly recommend it and Google searches suggest F&B paint needs it because its water based or something.

Would it be the end of the world if I didn't use primer first? I don't want to waste expensive paint but also don't want to fork out for more expensive primer if its not really needed, because also the two colours I've picked apparently require different primers!

Thanks for any advice

I've used F&B eggshell for years and have never used primer over previously painted wood. It's always gone on very nicely and lasted well.

Best reply I could have hoped for, thank you!

Just to add - as it's just me and you on the post 😃- I've used their eggshell in all sorts of colours, though nothing extremely pale. The palest I've used is probably Nancy's Blushes (having said that, I suppose it's relatively pale!), the darkest Downpipe, plus quite a few blues and greens of varying shades. As you can probably tell, I like F&B a lot!!! It's never let me down as other brands have. Good luck!

Primer is for bare wood. Undercoat is for previously painted wood which is not in great nick and needs a thicker coat of paint to improve the finish.
Sometimes you need undercoat if you are switching between oil based and water based paints but sometimes it is fine.
Make sure you key the existing paint by gently running sandpaper over and you should be OK without an undercoat

Thanks very much for this, very helpful. 🙂

Geneticsbunny is 100% correct about bare wood and primer. Tbh, I think I thought you were asking about undercoat (bit stupid of me!). I've never used UNDERCOAT under F&B eggshell....but the one time I tried the very light sanding thing on the existing woodwork, I could see the marks through the paint and ended up doing 3 coats, when 2 would have otherwise been fine. Never tried it again...

Sand even lighter than that. You literally just pass the sandpaper over the paint once or twice. And use fine sandpaper, like, 100 grit.

If anyone is interested, I tested a bit on a door frame straight on, no sanding or anything, and it sort of repelled away a bit. So I have purchased a recommended undercoat, not F&B's which seemed complicated, expensive and calls itself 'primer & undercoat' (which might explain some confusion I caused) but seems to be the right thing for the job. Fingers crossed, can't wait to get rid of my magnolia hall!

If you have any issues then I swear by dulux professional undercoat. It is brilliant.

It looks like you’re sorted now but we painted our bedroom red earth by farrow and ball from new build white and did use the primer (purely because I got it 50% off in B&Q!). I did find both the primer and the paint needed mixing really well - possibly because it’s not such a popular shade though? We bought a paint mixer attachment for our drill for a couple of pounds and used that - I’d been stirring by hand for ages and in about 10 seconds it mixed it properly and totally changed colour! I found the undercoat very scary looking and dark to apply but we are so incredibly happy with the end result and the colour really is rich and feels very alive/changes in the light. We painted the ceiling a softer white and didn’t bother with the primer for that, when I was reading up it seemed like they mainly advised it if you were making a drastic colour change - possibly to neutralise the undertones?? So you should be fine unless the door is currently neon pink or something I would say but definitely mix super well and consider the mixing attachment thing!

Yes all done and dusted now but thanks so much. I used a Zinsser (think that's the name) undercoat, mainly because I think the water based F&B wasn't adhering to the oil based gloss of the previous paint. It was a lot of work, and patience! but I'm really pleased with the result and love the finish of modern eggshell, I've got one door in Kittiwake and it's like 2 totally different colours depending what room it opens/closes to.
I'm glad all your decorating went well too.

You've been lucky - I had a batch of F&B paint that would not behave properly - it dried sticky when it went over Zinsser, I had to scrape the F&B paint off and paint with their primer and then it was fine. I've only had this happen once with F&B but it's happened to plenty of painters if you look online, but it was enough to put me off F&B.

Oh no! What a nightmare! Sorry to hear that, I'm glad it worked for me as I wouldn't have been able to afford to buy all the paint again!

I love their colours, and the finish, and the paint barely smells which must be good, but it's not as easy and straight forward as Dulux. I'll be using Dulux for my bedroom which is the next room to be rid of magnolia!

It did knock my confidence in the their paint - I have it in a few rooms but I generally don't buy it any more - nice colours but the paint is just not great to work with. I had to give my living room 5 coats to get the right depth of colour - it's not just the price of the paint - it's my time too. I painted the whole house - you get very fussy about the paint you buy and you get to know the people in the paint shop very well!

If you're painting on pre-painted wood, a light sand is all you need.
Farrow and Ball is very expensive and you can get it colour matched much cheaper. For next time.....

Zinsser is a fantastic brand, I bless the day I discovered it.

I use F&B, and painting over oil-based paint I’ve done the same - give it a key, Zinsser 123, then F&B eggshell. While I agree F&B is not the easiest paint to use, the effect is worth the effort for me.

IME, F&B primer undercoat is very good but I avoid where possible as it all gets expensive.