"The foam brush causes the peel look, and brushing right afterwards won't improve it, especially with the primer as it sets those bumps fast. " Not exactly. Perhaps you should learn better painting skills. Hint - it's all in the prep work, applying the paint is only about 10-15% of the job! "Wooster ones work so much better in getting a super smooth finish coat" It's a poor craftsman that blames his tools, both brands make very good brushes. Choosing the correct type of brush for the job is critical. (see above comment) Foam rollers are fine to get lots of paint onto the surface quickly and fairly even. Smooth after with the brush. Rollers leave orange peel - period. If you don't want it you have to smooth down the orange peel. +1 about Floetrol and Penetrol. Most old timers won't touch Satin Impervo in waterbase, so all this applies to oil base and goes back to # it's all in the prep which includes choosing the correct product. It has a pretty long open time especially with Penetrol in it. "but XIM Extender is usually preferred by the pros. " perhaps in your neighborhood , but not on the jobs I go to, especially in the Southeast, especially with BenMoore paints. XIM makes some fantastic coatings, but they are not really known for their interior trim paints! "I should have realized something was up " Yep, you should have realized your paint guy wasn't as knowledgeable or as competent as you/he thought.

I have two rules for acrylic enamels: 1) don't use them. 2) if I have to use them, never apply to windows or shelves. I never get call backs for bookshelves being sticky when using oil enamels. There may be a remedy in a tin of wax. Apply furniture wax to the sticky bits. It may be enough to unstick them. There are teflon-containing spray lubes that could help at the window seals. The extreme step would be to apply some liquid silicone spray. That bill will come due when it needs repainting; the next painter will be cursing you. Casey

I plan on painting my interior doors, base moulding and moulding around the doors. I plan on purchasing BM ADVANCED Interior Alkyd but I'm not sure if the finish should be different for the door and moulding. Should I use a semigloss finish on the moulding and a satin on the doors or the same on both? If so the which finish? Does the Satin have a slight shine to it? The color will be an off white. The house was built in 1999 and the paint as sprayed on both molding and doors and in the daylight I can see a slight difference in the sheen. Thanks for the help in advance

Thanks, paintguy. "Advance ... the worst of both oil and latex in one product." LOL, I know, right?? I don't understand why anyone would want that. I did not find a white similar to BM's Simply White at Sherwin Williams today and they said they likely couldn't accurately duplicte it. The Regal line (high build) was recommended to me by the paint store for painting a door! I thought the Advance was waterbased alkyd, whatever that means, but waterbased or not, the word "alkyd" threw me?! I have used Aura on walls and really, really like it, but wasn't sure how it would work for trim, or especially on doors. I don't want the paint surfaces sticking to each other and peeling off!