sleepy hollow said:

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So, my "supervisor" has decided she wants to repaint the entire interior. This is two floors of a 3500 sf 4 BR home. I have many hours logged with rollers and brushes over the years, including my finished basement where I did all the drywall install, mudding, priming and painting (1500 sf of finished space). But I am wondering if there is any time to be saved and quality to be gained by using a sprayer instead this time around. Would like to go faster if possible, among there things.

My routine is usually as follows:

1. repair damage, nail pops, re-mud, sand, spot prime as needed.
2. clean walls and ceilings
3. Mask moldings, trim as needed (i rarely need to mask much as I have a pretty steady and practiced hand I would say)
4. Cut in ceiling edges
5. roll ceiling once or twice, if new color
6. cut in wall edges
7. roll walls and repeat 6 before 2nd rolled coat
8. paint trim and doors, 2 coats

I usually use a roller with extension and a 5 gal bucket with a roller screen in it. I almost always clean and reuse rollers several times before discarding, but I am cheap. I have a fitting for my laundry sink that cleans rollers pretty quick.

Of course I left out removing or moving furniture and other objects, and covering everything with drop cloths.

So, I wondered if spraying would help with any of the painting steps? "Help" could mean go faster and/or produce better quality result. Hopefully both.

I plan to use good quality latex acrylic like Pratt and Lambert/ Benjamin Moore, etc.

I have a 5 CFM compressor if it could be useful. Looking at airless sprayers it looks like they are reasonably inexpensive, and produce less overspray than in the past, but I am not sure I understand how much overspray I will be dealing with and whether it is worth it for the time saved and quality upgrade?

HVLP guns look interesting in terms of better control, and lower overspray. Looks like they take longer, but I don't need to go at ½ gal per minute. That seems awfully fast.

Finally, using latex seems to create issues with spray guns, so whatever needs to be done to handle latex could overcome any benefits in the first place. Time spent thinning the mix, or coating multiple times due to thinning seem to be two possible drawbacks. And not clear what gun type and nozzle size is best.

All input welcome. I suspect I'll decide to just bite the bullet and roll it as I have always done. But, I would love to be convinced otherwise.

Thanks.

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I live in Somerville (hi neighbor!) and have a basement with a workshop... it's definitely possible to find but you'll pay a premium for workshop space in a city obviously.

Instead of having a shop in your house, you may want to check out shared workspaces, a quick google search brought up http://www.hackrva.org/ in Richmond, and they say they have woodworking space/tools.
Hacker/Maker spaces are pretty cool communities, we have one in here in Somerville call the Artisan's Asylum. Worth stopping by to check out.

(And honestly as you get older it's pretty great to be involved in a community of friends who make stuff instead of being by yourself in your basement all the time.)

That's very pretty Arlin. The contrasts show very well. Cool piece.

That's cool. Thanks for the link.

You don't have to build a plywood workstation to do what you are talking about
Here is a picture of mine

Has anyone used BM Cabinet Coat?

I think I am leaning towards using either BM Advance or the Cabinet coat.

Cut a 4" hole in the front lower door and put a hose flange on it.

What's an OE sander? I'm confused...

This thread is useless witho.....

Wait, um.....

Okay, what's the story?

I would use nothing but 3/4" plywood for upper cabinets. Ever lift a stack of dishes 6-8" high and feel the weight? When I make my uppers I make them out of 3/4" plywood, and I dado the bottoms, rabbett the tops, rabbet the back onto them and I glue and screw the things to oblivion. I've never ever had one fall off the wall. Yet I have seen and been asked to fix 1/2" cabinets that fell off, even ones that were sitting on a cleat. Ever see a kid pull a chair up to a set of cabinets and use the upper cabinet to pull themselves up so they can stand on the countertop? I have. No imagine the cabinet being pulled off the wall. I've heard of that happening twice because I replaced the cabinets in one case, and rebuilt the other ones in another case.

I saw some 1/2" ones made by a woodworker recently and his comment was "we won't be putting heavy stuff in those upper cabinets so 1/2" is fine." The cabinets in his current house are stuffed top to bottom with stuff. How he thinks his family is suddenly going to change how they store stuff is a mystery to me. He'll be scraping on of his cabinets up off the floor in no time. He used prefinished plywood, no screws, just staples and no glue. Even if he used glue the prefinished plywood would prevent it from sticking.