indoor walls: spray paint or roll paint with rollers?

[Ari Shapiro]

A question for the painting experts in the group:

The walls of my living room are 20' high. I got a bid from a painter who says that it is better to use a paint spray machine to paint the walls of the living room, since the height of the walls makes it more difficult to use rollers and that some unwanted streaking will occur while using rollers. The spray paint, he says, will give a uniform finish.

On the other hand, a few of my friends say that they have never heard of anyone using a spray paint machine to paint the interior walls while the room is furnished, and that their walls have always been painted with rollers.

Can anyone confirm whether it is unusual to spray paint the living room walls? Will painting with rollers yield uneveness or streaking?

Thanks!

Ari Shapiro

[mark Ransley]

Furnished house ? spray travels, period. He will need at least 2 men and scaffolding one on the scaffold one on the ground, Its done all the time with rollers. Either way ck his insurance.

[Joseph Meehan]

I have seen it used some years ago, but only by the contractor who used cheap paint and cheaper painters. The results were not very even, but it was fast.

My suggestion is to pass on the idea. If the walls are too tall to pant easy with a roller, they are not going to be any easier to paint with a spray gun.

BTW is he talking about the machine that sits in the middle of the room and just sprays everything?

[Dwight Duckstein]

Rollers will leave a slight texture behind, more or less depending on the amount of paint loaded in the roller and the type/length of nap on the roller. Quality of the paint makes a difference as well. Personal preference for me is a high quality latex enamel with a 3/8 nap roller. I load the roller very heavily, go a quarter to a half of a roller width beyond the last strip, and work it back in, floor to ceiling. On an 8' wall, that works great and leaves a slight dimpled texture that tends to dampen reflections and imperfections, but remains washable. To evenly distribute the texture, start halfway up the wall with your roller.

On 20' walls, whatever method you use, there is a risk of a start/stop strip being quite noticeable where you have painted the lower so many feet, then got out your ladder and did the other so many feet, overlapping the lower part slightly. To avoid that, paint floor to ceiling all the way across. Long roller handles, scaffolding, etc. might be helpful.

If your walls are very smooth now, and you want to maintain a very smooth surface, spray will be better. But - make sure you use a good airless sprayer and do lots of drop-cloths. If there is a slight texture now, you won't notice the difference with a properly applied roller job.

HTH.

[Jeff Cochran]

Locally it would be common to spray and then backroll for texture. Of course, the second and third bids from other painters that you should've gotten mighta helped you answer this yourself...

Jeff