Just a little backstory- the doors to the house in question are OLD, the house was built in 1922 and I am assuming all the doors are original. They were stained a very dark cherry/ebony color and then varnished subsequently many times. A few years back they were "stained" - and by stained i mean that the stain (also a very dark color) was put on the door and left on to dry over a few weeks erroneously.

Fast forward a few years later and the doors were wanting to be painted white- so they were heavily stripped of stain/varnish layers with Citri-strip gel, cleaned, and then painted with Behr Semi Gloss paint- a few coatings of it. The doors look great at first but after a few weeks pink wood grain patterns (bleeding) come through. They have been painted a few more times in the same white color and again the pink bleeding in wood grain pattern comes through.

At this point it would be absurd to strip these down and start over.

Is there anything that can be painted on top of the existing paint layer to prevent the bleeding and THEN repaint in the desired color? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as this is endlessly frustrating.

Thank you

 

Welcome to the forums!

It sounds like the wrong primer was used. Did you use a latex primer? Normally an oil base primer will prevent bleeding [and can be top coated with latex] Pigmented shellac [like Zinnser's BIN] is the ultimate stain sealing primer.

I'd give them a good sanding and then apply a coat of oil base primer.

 

Thanks for your reply-
When you say sanding, is this just to rough up the surface of the existing paint? Or does it need to be sanded down to the wood again?

I am pretty sure this was the paint used - just the standard behr semi gloss paint
PREMIUM PLUS® Interior Semi-Gloss Enamel - Interior | Behr Paint

If that helps at all with the verdict! It says enamel on it- but it doesn't say if it is latex or not, actually none of their paints do. They suggest this on their site, for stains and glossy surfaces, PREMIUM PLUS® Interior Stain-Blocking Primer & Sealer | Behr Paint
.. not sure if it is anywhere on par to what you recommend.

Thanks!

 

That's latex... Look at the msds. Enamel just refers to the hardness it willt dry to. Kind of irrelevant since nothing regulates which products can be labeled as such.

If you want to try a latex primer, use Zinser bullseye 123 . otherwise, the Bin is the one to try.


Hit the doors with a sanding sponge and wipe any dust off, then paint. Don't worry about sanding a lot, you just want to scuff it up.

 

Zinsser® B-I-N® Advanced Synthetic Shellac Primer White Product Page

this super advanced one should do the trick then? And then Can be painted right over with the Behr paint?

The only reason I am asking about using Behr again is because the color used matches all of the other trim in the house.

 

Any paint Store can match colours. Even those "unmatchable" Benjamin Moore colours.
But, yes, the behr should be OK.

 

I've never used the synthetic pigmented shellac but assume it should be ok - Zinnser has a great reputation with their primers. As noted above there is no need to sand down to bare wood [latex paints don't sand great anyway] The main thing is to scuff the enamel for better adhesion and remove any excess latex paint.