The main reasons paint fails is moisture beneath the paint; painting over a dirty or glossy surface. Are the posts a hollow cavity? Check for moisture infiltration. If any, correct that first. Be sure joints are caulked and cracks are sealed. Sand to a sound surface and prime again with the Bulls Eye 1 2 3. Oil base is not neccessary, nor will it fix the problem. Oil base primer or paint requires the same meticulous prep as does acrylic paints. What paint have you used in the past? Finish with two coats of high quality 100% Acrylic Latex enamel or Duration Exterior. Michael

I know, I know, and I don't necessarily disagree with your viewpoint. I've been contemplating it for 8 years, but the problem is it's in really bad condition (previous owners) - an old 1920's house, but the second floor is so dark, not enough natural sunlight, small rooms, regardless of paint color on the walls it's so dreary, I have proper lighting, but I think the painted woodwork will really brighten things up. I just want to do it right. Also, the previous owners have two rooms up there with already painted woodwork (gawdy blue, AND they painted one of the hardwood floors ???????????!!!!!! which we had refinished back to its original condition). Right now it's a mix mox of painted vs. unpainted. I tried removing the paint in one room with a heat gun, burned some of the woodwork, so now it's just sitting and waiting for my next move. I really dislike working with toxic paint removers/fumes, so I opted for the gun. Casey, this is a little off topic but I'm hijacking my own thread....what do you know about cherry wood specifically? Here's my dilemma: I have custom cherry cabinets in my kitchen which we had installed, and without getting into the long drawn out nightmare story about contractors and their subcontractors when we remodeled many years ago, I'll just say that someone didn't know what they were doing (whomever finished them). First, they brought them to me stained with such a high gloss (laquerish?) finish (which I never asked for) and I almost fell over. I said no way. So I sent them back to have them dull the finish and they did, but the finish never looked professional to me. Done and over with, so no use getting into that story. In terms of the cherry wood itself, I was told to never use oil products on them (like murphy's oil soap for example) when cleaning them, to just use a mild soap and water. So I never have. In their current condition, and since not long after they were installed, they appear to have "white" areas - I was told this is possibly moisture or humidity? So somewhere along the line I'm guessing someone put something on these cabinets (like perhaps oil? - possibly the drunk subcontractor who was supposed to finish them but didn't know what he was doing). In some areas, they look awful, and they didn't look like that when they were installed. I had a cleaning lady come in and she thought they were filthy - she was ready to scrub them (how embarrassing), and I had to explain to her that it's moisture. Any idea what caused this? Or better, how can we fix it? I know that when we try to sell, people are going to come in and think they are dirty and I couldn't imagine painting cherry cabinets, but they really look pretty bad. I'll try to post some pics here.

What paint/primer brand and type should I try? I see on Consumer Reports the Behr (Home Depot) Premium Plus Enamel is rated tops and great for for hiding (whatever hiding is). In the last house we had a similar issue with Behr semi gloss paint and the Kilz primer. Not sure if it was the same type of paint but I painted 2 coats of Kilz primer and several coats of semi-gloss white but it was not covering. I gave up after about 5 coats total. The rest of the house had semi gloss painted by the home manufacturer and it looked very nice and cleaned up great (kids). The one room I painted had the flat paint and the texture would come off the walls when you had to clean it. Current house has similar flat paint everywhere and we hate it but can't seem to get the coverage the home builder did in the last house with semi-gloss paints. we're about ready to give up, costs to much time and money to put on 5 coats and still not look good. I'm going to wait at leat a week or more before trying a new primer and paint. Wish me luck!

baileyandbella, We sprayed our doors with Sherwin Willians Prep Rite, Seals and Bonds latex and SW Pro Classic. Our doors were bare wood, so keep that in mind. It went like this, prime backs, prime fronts, first coat back, first coat front, second coat back, second coat front. We waited 24 hours between each front coat, and our doors look great! It was not blotchy. We used the Wagner Paint Crew sprayer, and DH was the one who sprayed. The key is to have even strokes, keeping your wrist steady, so it is not moving back and forth, but painting with your arm. I hope that made sense. LOL. Any way, here are some photos: Garage set-up; doors are on wooden blocks, and we didn't move them until they were dry enough to handle. Then we moved them to other side of the garage to fully dry and moved on to the next set of doors. This took a while, as we had 69 doors and drawer fronts to finish. Here is a photo of our peninsula with finished door and drawer fronts: (kitchen is not finished, so try to ignore all those things like blue tape and missing toekick--LOL) We did not intall our doors for about 2 weeks before installing the doors.