Behr Premium Plus Paint and Primer in One has been available at Home Depot for a while, and I was always really skeptical. I really like Zinsser’s water-based 1-2-3 Primer, and I just did not believe that paint alone could do as good a job. The carpenter who did my bathroom remodel convinced me to give it a try in that room. He had used it on bare drywall and had been very impressed. I gave it a try in the bathroom and was pretty impressed, too.

I had nearly an entire gallon left, so I decided that the real test would be whether it could cover this bright yellow paint with dark yellow and blue stars. I mixed my leftover gallon of grey with a gallon of ultra pure white to make a lighter grey. The paint is the flat finish, which is all I use on lumpy old plaster walls.

As a reminder, here’s what the walls looked like before painting. I sanded down the stars so there would be no raised edges showing through.

And here’s what it looks like after one coat! This post is not sponsored in any way, it’s my unbiased review of this paint. I can’t believe how well it covers. You can see speckles of yellow where I didn’t roll on enough paint, as usually happens with a first coat. The stars have been completely covered. If your paint technique is good enough, you could probably get away with one coat.

And here it is two two coats. Getting rid of that yellow was such a relief. The new grey color makes the tan trim look even worse, but it will be gone soon! I still have a half gallon of my trim paint (from Behr’s regular line), but when it is gone, I will try the Paint and Primer on my trim in a semi-gloss finish.

The Paint and Primer runs about $32 in the flat finish. My favorite Zinsser primer runs about $30 for a two gallon bucket, making the Paint and Primer over twice as much. If you need to watch every penny, you’ll want to stick to using a traditional primer. If time is more important, the Paint and Primer will save a lot of time. One of my next projects is painting my front stairwell, and I’m going to have to spend a lot of time on a 20 foot ladder over the stairs to get to it all. I’m going to use the Paint and Primer so I can spend as little time on the ladder as possible.

With the walls painted, I went ahead and started pulling out the carpet. I cut it into three foot strips so they’d be easy to carry. The wood floor underneath is in pretty good shape, with just a few areas where the finish has worn away. I’m not planning to do anything to the floor other than clean it with some Murphy’s oil soap. I couldn’t wait to hang my capiz shell lamp, so I hung it as soon as the paint was dry. Before I painted the ceiling, I drilled until I found a joist to hang the hook from.

It’s amazing how much the character of the room changes with the new color and the carpet removal! The next steps are painting trim and starting to bring in furniture!

— Loryn