painting issues

painting old furniture is always kind of unpredictable...
.. this weeks problem was a big beautiful buffet....it looked normal......but the paint started beading up, and not sticking right......the painters judgement was that it had an oil based stain on it......maybe the previous owners stained it up before putting it in the auction......and thus our latex paint wouldnt stick right......

it turned out ok tho...with some of the nice old finish showing thru....
when something has a super shiny finish we know we have to do something before painting...like liquid sander or real sanding or primer.....but this piece looked pretty normal...
.the painter likes everything perfect, unified, etc ...and doesnt really believe in the good parts of a hit and miss paint job....