Is it necessary to prime the white walls of our brand new house? The builder used flat paint?

Question

Is it necessary to prime the white walls of our brand new house? The builder used flat paint?

Answer 1

No--that white paint will act as your primer.  Be prepared for the walls to really soak up the paint though--allow for a little extra paint for good coverage.  Do two coats and make sure the walls are thoroughly dry between the coast--the paint will hold up better.

Answer 2

Usually if you're doing a dark color, it's best to primer over the white. It gives the paint something to stick to. It's also cheaper to primer than to use 5 coats of paint. If you're just painting your walls a cream color on the other hand, I think you'll be fine without primering. Just consider how dark the shade is. Anything red, blue, green, orange, etc. is going to need something to adhere to so the color builds nicely instead of being see-through with white underneath.

Answer 3

no. if you are painting it a color different than white, you can just use two coats. remember that the more coats you use, the better the paint looks

Answer 4

No. I think that's primer what you are seeing as flat paint. If it's white then you should be able to paint right over it. When I moved into a brand new townhome, that's what I did. I just painted over the white walls. Depending upon the color you choose, you may need to do a few coats.

Answer 5

no. primer is used when you are painting over a dark color with a lighter color. and primer is white anyways so you can just paint right over your walls.

Answer 6

Not necessary.  Primer is mainly needed to cover up darker or brighter colors if you plan on painting a more neutral lighter color.  If you didn't use primer, you'd probably need 2-3 coats of paint to cover the color underneath.   Since your builder used white flat paint, that's pretty much a perfect empty canvas to paint whatever color you want.

Answer 7

I'm assuming it's a very light coloured flat paint?

The whole idea of using primer is that it is a whole lot CHEAPER than paint number one.  Therefore, in order to save money on several coats of paint, you are better off priming a wall.  It usually makes the paint adhere better too.  

Definitely you would want to prime over a dark coloured wall if you are going lighter or your paint won't look anywhere near the colour you would expect it to on the wall.

Your walls are new and flat paint hides the imperfections better than a glossier paint too which is probably why they used it.

I don't think you need to prime again, but rather than use flat again use something in between. You don't want too high a gloss...high gloss is usually more for kitchen and baths.

I personally don't feel flat paint has as good coverage and I've painted many a wall in my lifetime. Primer gets paint to really stick to it so depending what the shade is and how expensive your paint is you need to make a judgement call on that.