How to Avoid Sanding Furniture When Painting

When you have a piece of furniture that you want to paint, but has a glossy finish, we often think we have to sand or degloss the finish before we can paint or even spray paint the item. Not true. There is a primer that will stick to glossy surfaces without having to sand: Zinsser BIN. I got a one gallon can at Home Depot for less than $25, and it comes in a spray can too.

Zinsser BIN is a shellac-based primer so it will stick to glass, Formica, wood, metal and other surfaces, and it's fast-drying. You can paint over it with either latex or oil based paint.  It cleans up with ammonia (which is hard to find these days), or denatured alcohol (you can also find denatured alcohol at the home improvement store).

Since BIN dries fast, will stick to so many surfaces, and is thinner than KILLZ or paint (it drips easily), it is harder to use.  You really need to cover your work area well because it is very hard to clean once it dries. I wore disposable latex gloves and used disposable brushes to make clean-up easier. Although more expensive than sanding, using BIN saved me a lot of time, energy, and clean-up work that is involved with sanding.

To minimize use of this product due to cleaning difficulty, you can use Zinsser BIN to primer glossy surfaces, allow the BIN to dry, then use your typical primer for the non-glossy parts of your furniture.