Question about paint primer (Think I got bad advice from Lowes)?

We closed on a house last week and wanted to paint the living room/dining room and master bedroom before we moved in. This was a HUGE job, because the rooms are fairly large with 12 foot ceilings and the owners had a dark, dusty rose color on the LR/DR walls and a mint green on the bedroom walls.





We went to Lowes and selected Lyndhurst Estate Cream as the LR/DR color and Lyndhurst Jade for the bedroom and decided to use Valspar Signature paint with an eggshell finish.





My first clue that something was wrong was that the guy recommended we use primer in the bedroom. I don't know much about painting, but I was fairly sure that covering a light color with a darker color was pretty easy and shouldn't require a coat of primer. We declined that, but then he offered to give us some primer and 'add a grey tint to it' for the LR/DR. He said it would make the painting a snap, since the premium paint we bought already had a primer in it as well.





We got home, opened the primer, and I gasped! It was purple! I thought, I sure hope this guy knows what he's talking about, and started applying it to my walls, where it was VERY purple. Eggplant, almost. Dried slightly lighter, but not much. And I still didn't doubt him too much until we got back the next day and started applying the pale yellow color to the walls. We bought 3 gallons of paint, which should have covered the entire space with paint to spare. After 3 hours, and much going over and over and over the walls, I had used a whole gallon and barely painted 1/5 of the room. The purple color was seeping through the first two coats, and even the third was only just covering it.





At that point, I realized we should just get the first coat up and go back for more paint. So I quit trying to cover up all the purple and just let the primer show through the first, thin coat. I still didn't manage to get all the trim painted, either.





Is it just me, or did the guy screw up by adding the tint to the primer? Isn't primer light grey, anyway? Wouldn't it have been better to put one light color over the pink, even if it didn't cover it all the way? Like I said, I'm no expert, but I don't know that Mr. Paint Desk is, either.





Advice? Comments? Suggestions?Question about paint primer (Think I got bad advice from Lowes)?
Primer is only needed on BARE drywall or wood. If the surface has been previously painted one doesn't need to prime again. If making a drastic color change, two coats of paint may be needed. This so-called primer in the paint is just a marketing who-do.Question about paint primer (Think I got bad advice from Lowes)?
This is another reason to not ask questions of the clerks in the big-box stores. Ask the pros in a specialty store!
here's the deal with primer, you can buy primer and do one coat of primer and 2 coats of paint, or you can do 3 coats of paint, as a general rule. to me a dusty pink is actually fairly dark, so primering MAY have helped, but clearly the tinted primer was a BAD idea. NEVER buy premium paint with primer in it...its an oxymoron and it just costs more. You'd be better off buying more regular paint. Or 1 can of cheap primer.





You could call me an expert i've painted so many rooms and i've done every color on the color wheel.


Gone from white to red


Red to light beige


Beige to deep blue


Purple to light grey


Green to yellow


Light blue to brown...


you name it, i've painted it...the ONLY time i recommend a primer is when using red. Red is temperamental, primer helps it to spread on evenly, so you get an even look...
using primer before painting is always a good idea. It cuts down on the amount of paint needed and seems to help the paint be more durable once your done. But it does sound like he tinted your primer too dark. Hope it works out for you.
I also just closed on an old house with tall, dusty rose walls!! and we are painting over them as well. I think that it is common to tint the primer, however i think you are right. he messed up. maybe tinting it SO dark would have made sense for the bedroom, but you should not prime it eggplant to paint the wall light yellow. he messed up.