Who in the world would ever paint plastic? The paint chips off and almost melts if it gets wet. Who needs another thing to feel bad about? On the other hand, if you are someone who delights in all the colors of our corner of the visible world this might be your ticket. Lawn furniture, electric switch plates, indestructible little corner tables-these all come in basically three colors, blah, blah and blah. As a committed soldier in the war on beige I ask, what are you going to do about that? Here’s what you do. Regular house paint has a hard time sticking to many plastics. What you need is primer, specifically, a bonding primer. They stick to just about anything. I am convinced that they would bond to bad memories: roll four or five coats of black paint over that and voila. All gone. X.I.M. makes a good bonding primer that is easy to find in paint and some hardware stores. Clean whatever it is you want to paint then give it a light sanding with 150 grit sandpaper. The sanding thing might be old painter habits but it won’t hurt. Brush on a coat of primer and by the next day it ought to be on there like white on a lima bean.
Caution: If by the next day you can scrape the primer off with your fingernail something is wrong. There might have been oil or wax or who knows what on the plastic. Nothing sticks to wax except more wax. Once primed, every hue forged in the big bang is yours to play with. The primer will stick to the plastic and the paint will stick to the primer. A turquoise patio table with ethereal aqua chairs: Be bold. If only love were so simple.
Have fun painting. Email any questions to
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