We are going to repaint our interior with a green paint and we have non-green paint on the walls. Can we paint over this?

- Rick in Prescott

We are going to paint our bathroom – a do-it-yourself project and I only want this to be a do-it-yourself one time. There is oil based paint currently on the walls and we want to use a good quality acrylic latex paint. My husband says we can just paint over the walls and I say we need to do something special, but I do not know what the “something special”. I want to say “good morning” to my husband because he will be so surprised when he reads this question and answer.

Oil based paint was at one time the most commonly used paints for bathrooms and is hardly used anymore, due to the greening of paint products. You must sand the walls first and they should be primed with a good quality primer as well. This should prevent a multiple do-it-yourself project from occurring.