Best approach to applying interior latex - whole house repaint

[sleepy hollow]

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.

[DieselDennis]

sleepy hollow said:

---

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.

---

Close call. You're definitely looking at airless. Don't even consider HVLP shooting latex on a 3500 sf house.

The airless will speed you up on steps #5 & #7. But it will slow you way down on #3 and will eliminate your steps #4 & #6.

I'd keep rolling. Sounds like you have a plan. Nobody said you had to do the whole house in a week. Plus, like you said, you're cheap.

[daveferg]

Having a contractor paint the inside of your house is more expensive than the exterior and when you tackle the job yourself, you'll understand why they charge more.

I've painted house interiors more than I'd like to admit. Here are a few tips to save time and effort.

1) If you're going to paint a room a lightish color----why not paint the ceiling the same color---saves a lot of cutting in time.

2) and along those lines, with the exception of cutting in or masking ceiling light fixture, for the average 8 ft. room, you'll never need a ladder----reason being a regular roller leaves a gap at the corners where walls meet or wall/ceiling meeting----get these little lambs wool rollers that just snap onto a small roller frame---they're great for tight spaces.

3) Move furniture to the center of the room and then get large rolls of plastic sheeting and wrap the furniture like Christmas presents---takes a little time, but avoids screwing up your back or scratching the furniture.

4) Avoid "feature/different color walls"----color splash or whatever they call them---they appear to be going out of favor and besides you'll likely waste most of a gallon of paint.

5) As to spraying----I think the best use is closet interiors. No more paint in your hair, eyes, mouth----just lean in and spray.

Hope this helps.

[JimReed@Tallahassee]

Your drill sounds just like mine so I have nothing to add there. But I do have other tips. I have been redoing my house room by room. Every time I go into a room, I do everything, including paint. That includes windows, window treatments, floor, air vents, door knobs, LED lighting, etc. And I also do DECLUTTERING!!! Everything comes out of the room and only some of the stuff goes back. It is that last step that has made dramatic changes to the house. We find that we enjoy these new rooms because removing the clutter can really help. Good luck with your project.

[Bill Wilson]

In my simple mind, the airless sprayer is the best solution, but only in new construction or if the house is otherwise empty/gutted. I follow pretty much the same steps as you and typically the actual painting part takes less time than all the other stuff. By the time you re-arrange furniture, prep/mask & such, you're probably going to end up doing each room one at a time anyway. That cuts into the savings when you can't just walk from one room to the other, spraying as you go. JMHO, but I think in the long run, you will be hard pressed to realize much time savings from spraying over rolling/brushing.

Oh and don't overlook how much time it takes to clean out the spray rig. If you have to do it in several stages, thus clean the equipment multiple times, you are really burning up any time saved by spraying.

[daveferg]

+1 on Bill's comments on how long it takes to clean an airless. When I used one---just like Bill said--it was in a completely empty house where I opted to spray paint popcorn ceilings rather then remove them----and sprayed the interior of each closet. It took me almost as long to clean the equipment (rented) as it did to do the job.

[David G]

My novice approach on a 3000SF house repaint.
1. Roll the ceiling first. Get paint onto the wall at the ceiling-wall joint. Usually two coats of white.
2. Paint the trim. Use Floetrol. Get paint on the walls. Push plastic between the rug and wall along the room perimeter. Get paint on the plastic.
3. Use a Wagner trim roller to paint the walls next to the trim and ceiling. Keep it clean. No need to tape. Wipe drips from the trim as needed.
4. Roll the walls.
5. Paint the inside of closets with the same gloss paint as the shelves.

I like the idea of spraying the entire closet. And, if you had a sprayer, you could easily spray the ceiling and trim first, then roll back the walls.

[sleepy hollow]

Great discussion, all. Looks like we'll stick with the old fashioned approach. No big deal, especially if there really is not a lot of time to be saved. Several of you gave me good ideas on a few places to save a few minutes, like the little rollers for the wall inside corners. Also, I have used the edge painting tools. They work pretty well if you can keep them from getting overloaded with paint. Work best around doors.

I always paint my ceilings the flattest white I can get. I really prefer that, so I am doomed to torture myself with the change of colors. Also, on the first floor, I have a lot of crown molding, so that makes for more fun.

I like the idea of trying to reduce clutter, great thought. And this time, I have a bunch of based molding to change out, so I can paint that trim in my workshop before installing.

Bad news, now LOML says she wants new hardwood floors. Hates the quickie Bruce prefinished stuff the real estate agent had installed when we bought the place 20+ years ago.

Geez, it never ends!

Thanks again, all.

[Herb G]

I painted for about 3 years, right out of high school. We sprayed everything the same color, same type of paint, except for bathrooms & kitchens. Those were painted in enamel & hand done.
Everything else was sprayed with an airless sprayer. We used to paint 3-4 houses a day doing it that way. Mostly new homes though.

[John Mihich]

The biggest problem with the airless is making sure you cover EVERYTHING. But once you do that spraying is really fast. I have done a few that way and love doing it. Lots of plastic and tape. But once you mask things off the spraying goes really fast.

A couple of rooms probably roll it. But at a certain point spraying is easier. Also your super can help with masking and clean up. I bought my airless about 15 years ago to paint the outside of the house. I have used it a lot since then.

I will say that if you paint white don't bother with ceiling white - just do the whole thing with one type. If you are doing colors and if you are not painting the ceiling the same color then it's more difficult because of the masking.