Table re-do part deux: priming

Priming. Priming priming priming. I do not know what happened with my regular pant primer (oil based) when I did my table top, but once it dried, I had to sand down the whole thing off and start again. I think the problem was that I used a paint brush. For some reason the primer would not spread thin enough with a brush. I had to switch to my handy dandy roller to finish the job. 

see the paint strokes? Not cool beans. If I didn't sand this down and do it again, you would see every stroke through the paint.

After the sand down. Looking at this now, I should have sanded ALL THE WAY THROUGH the black paint to the raw wood.

Once I used the roller, the primer went on a little better. I'm still not sure why it was going on so thick.... anyone know? 

The next mistake I made was I only did ONE COAT of primer on a black table and chairs that are meant to go to white. Stupid. I should have done at least 3 coats of primer, with a light sanding in-between coats (the light sanding is necessary). 

The chairs were tricky. I barely sanded them down at first (stupid) and I used the paint brush to apply the primer on two of the chairs. On the other two, I had Steve use the spray primer (oil based). The results were better, but the chairs would have been great if I had done... MORE THAN ONE COAT. 

as you can see, this project took over my entire apartment.

Now, to clean your brushes/rollers of oil-based paint is quite the process. You can't just use water and soap in a sink.... I did not know this until Steve checked on the internet how to really dispose of it:

Paint thinner should be used to remove oil-based paint from brushes. Once the brush is clean of paint, rinse the brush in the sink with stinking hot water.

To get rid of oil-based paint on your hands, scrub your skin with canola oil and salt. Rinse with the hottest water you can stand. 

Water-based primer is ok, but it takes A WEEK to cure before you can paint over it. Ugh, no thank you. A trip the the recycling plant to dispose of the paint thinner (don't throw it away!) is worth the week saved. Save the water-based for the paint...tomorrow!