Ok so I totally messed up when painting my kitchen island cabinets. Used Benjamin Moore advanced per the paint stores recommendation. They also stated I would not need to prime an already painted surface so I didn’t. Just slapped the advance right over existing finish without sanding either 🤦🏻‍♀️. Well it looked great but even months later was scraping off with a fingernail , obviously due to my complete lack of prep. I scraped as much as I could and sanded everything, primed then painted again but this time with a regular latex as I was afraid the advance would scrape off again. A lot of work for a stupid mistake.

I understand now that you can’t paint over a smooth shiny finish without prep and expect it to adhere.

is there any other reason other than adhesion issues that you need to Prime over the varnish before painting? This may sound crazy but should I be concerned that because I put the advance right on top with no barrier that some sort of airborne toxicity formed due to the combo( varnish was obviously dry as the cabinets are a few years old) Or is the merely an issue with adhesion?

I have attached a photo of the cabinets without paint on them. I’m just assuming this is conversion varnish or some othwr form of laquer based on a quick Google search of factory painted cabinets but could be wrong