Primer for vinyl covered wallboard

a new DIY-er

I live in a mobile home, and some of the walls are paper covered wall board, some of them are vinyl covered. It's not possible to remove the coverings before painting.

I successfully (so far) painted one of the bathrooms, which had been painted or primed (one thin coat) by a previous owner. The paint or primer that was on the wall had held up well, but you could still see the pattern through the coat. I simply primed over it with Kilz2 and painted with a Valspar latex enamel paint. I chose, bought and painted before I found this forum.

Since I have found the forum, I've headed off to my local Sherwin Williams store for the cabinet/trim paint and will continue to purchase their paints for the rest of the house.

The last time that I went in, I asked the SW employee about the best primer to use on mobile home walls and he sold me a low VOC multi-purpose oil based primer.

It was only after I got home that I remembered that oil based is supposed to be a bit more difficult to work with (spills, etc). I'm new to painting so I'm not sure what (if anything) I need to know about the oil based primer.

My questions:
1) Is oil based primer the best thing for priming my walls, which are either paper covered or vinyl covered? Would a bonding primer be better?

2) If the oil based is best, what do I need to make sure to get before I start priming?

3) Do I use my regular brushes/rollers that I will then use for painting or should I buy primer specific items?

4) Do I need to buy anything for cleaning up spills?

5) Will there be a specific type paint I will need to use over the oil based primer, or just trust my SW guy to steer me in the right direction?



I appreciate all your help! I have learned quite a bit from this forum, but I haven't really seen these specific questions asked.