We just bought a new spec house, and we're painting it ourselves as soon as the drywall is textured. I've heard a lot of bad things about Wagner Paint Crew power sprayers. What's the best way for a DIY person to paint the interior of a new house?
Wagner-type sprayer? Rent a professional sprayer? Roller? Power roller?
Also, do I need to prime the texture? I've heard you should, but a guy told me that the sprayed-on texture has primer built-in.
And should we caulk where our white window/door trim meets the drywall before cutting in the color on the walls?
Good old fashioned roller and tray. Especially NOTHING with the Wagner name on it. Priming with drywall primer will cause you to use less paint. The texture mud and the drywall paper don't take paint the same. It'll look much better with a primer especially if you are using a satin or semi-gloss.
New drywall needs to be primed. Look up website for the texture product used and see what they advise. I would bet that it should be primed. We had a "power roller" (gadget-freak hubby) and it was a piece of junk. Doesn't add any ease to the job and makes for less control.
If there are gaps between your trim and the drywall, do caulk. Tape the trim to keep caulk off of it, remove tape right away.
Here's what I did after they finished the house, I did the interior painting with assistance from my son. I contracted the floor coverings after painting.
Go through the entire area with a shop vac, then wet sponge/cloth remainder on wood trim. Take interior doors off hinges, place on sawhorses and paint. Let the doors dry outside. Left these doors off during prep, texture and painting of walls. Caulked all trim to wall areas and set nail holes, and joints in trim. Masked off trim, exterior doors/all hinges, windows, light fixtures, wall outlets, bathroom and kitchen non-wall areas etc. Used the blue tape almost exclusively All this took about 2 days. Textured all the walls and ceilings with rented spray texture and hopper. Opened 2 exterior doors and air dried for 2 days.
Regarding painting, there's not enough light in the rooms, you may have to open some windows or provide artificial lighting cuz the texture covered most of the light entry from the covered windows. I rented a commercial sprayer and compressor. The corners of the rooms where they meet the ceiling are toughest to get painted. Each room took about 30-45 minutes to paint. I started pulling the tape off after about 3 hours drying time. Primed all first, used oil based primer in bathrooms and kitchen. Used oil based paint in bathrooms and kitchen. Brush painted all the trim with primer and enamel. Reinstalled interior doors on the hinges last.
Most time consuming was prep followed by trim painting. Be sure the window masking is well attached, overspray may lift and paint the glass. Avoid shortcuts on the masking/prep, will save you alot of time afterwards.
Roller is good if you're a pro and know how to do it without getting a lot of lines.
New house is infinitely different than doing it with stuff in there. I used a Graco XR7, and was pleased as punch. You have one person spray, and another roll right behind them with a sheepskin roller. Have several rollers, and change to a drier one as that one loads up. You get lots of paint on there for a first coat, and the backrolling puts a nice stipple on it. Once a roller gets full, just wash it with a water jet, no need to take out all the paint to use it for backrolling. In fact, don't use one dry, but put some amount of paint on it before you backroll, or your stipple pattern will be noticeably uneven.
You also get overspray on EVERYTHING, so prep is vital.
Also, spray the walls first if they are going to be a different color than the ceiling. Let the spray go up enough to get into the corners, a little onto the ceiling. Let dry for a couple of days. Tape off the walls with GOOD TAPE AND 18" strips of paper. Now spray the ceiling, backrolling it, too. Pull the tape and paper with the paint wet, or you will pull off a lot of stuff you don't want to. Do the final cut in with a one inch tapered brush.
I know that paint sprayers aren't the most popular ways to paint, and there are lots of nuances to them, but if you are doing NEW construction, and the overspray won't get on furniture or appliances, it's the best way IMHO to go and get a thick coat of paint on evenly and have it look good once it dries.
The sprayer also shines when spraying over popcorn. Mask and spray, and it looks like new. Although, it is about as easy to just remove the popcorn, and once you've painted the popcorn, it is a pure D bitch to get off compared to unpainted.
No comparison outside for block walls and open areas as well.
Don't waste your money on the wanna be Wagner Power Sprayers and the like. I got an XR7 on ebay for $325, and it has saved me that much, and more. Plus, two guys can paint 250' of block wall before lunch. Try that with a roller.
No, it don't. But there are some tricks in doing it so that a month from now, you can look at it at an angle and not see all the roller marks. It all depends on what type of end product you are satisfied with.
We do a lot of our own painting on small additions and remodels but sub it on large projects and entire houses and I would agree with Steve B. There is a major difference noticable to an 8 year old between a wall rolled by someone who "knows how to run a roller", and someone who just paints a wall with a roller. Its like watching a guy who really knows how to run a shovel. You would think any idiot can dig a ditch, but get next to a guy who really knows how to run a shovel and he'll out dig you two to one and he may be smaller and weaker. Ask any equipment operator what its like having a good guy in the trench and they will tell you there is even something to running a tool as simple as a shovel.
In our experience the two main the problems are roller marks and the average joe is constantly trying to stretch the roller load over WAY to large an area. This goes equally for cutting in. You often see streaked/dry cut-ins where people try to stretch a brush load over 5' where a typical 2 1/2" brush shouldnt go more than perhaps 12"-18" at most. A heavily loaded roller (and I mean heavy) shouldnt cover any more than about 5 square feet (30"x30") in our opinion. You often see people trying to roll a 2' wide swath of an 8 foot wall with a single load. The roller handle is flexing they are pushing so hard trying to wring all the paint out of the roller. When we break in new guys on painting we do a few things,
-first they look around for a roller tray and we tell them to sh*t can the tray and use a bucket and screen. Trays are fine for a closet or small area but they are an absolute waste of time, have to be filled often, spill easy, are hard to move around, and make loading the roller take longer. You need a little extra paint with a bucket and screen but a half a gallon of paint aint squat for a nice job.
-next is not to exceed 5 sq. ft. per load. A 30" wide swath of 8' wall should take three roller loads and perhaps a light load for laying off. A good trick that we have found is to tell them that the rolling should be quiet. If you hear the roller, its too dry. That seems to get them to reload more often.
-rolling without lines is something people can usually only learn by doing. A very soft touch, long stokes, and rolling away from the shaft end of the frame works best for us. As was stated, there is nothing worse than looking at an open wall in low angle low light (morning/evening sun) and seeing those roller marks.
Some other tips we use on all our jobs are to always sand your prime coat. This is especially true when you spray primer. Drywall is often times hairy from sanding and still has a bit of dust on it even when you vac. Sanding the primer with 220 (we use a Radius360 pole sande which is invaluable) makes a world of difference.
We caulk about a 1/16" bead at all wall/trim joints and roll the paint slightly onto the trim (ever so slightly) even with stain/urethane trim. Another would be to untape immediately so you dont risk a ragged edge where the paint has dried to the tape. If you do a single tape job this can happen anyway as the prime and base coat will dry to the tape regardless. In super primo situations we will untape after the first finish coat, let it dry and retape just off that first coat. This gives the best edge in a real critical/highly visible area.
Also is to ALWAYS two coat no mater what. Never listen to even the quality mfrs who are calling some of their paints one coat. The color depth and cleanability with a second coat is well worth the work.
Lastly is to use high quality paint. Nothing from the home center. Good paint should be so thick your stir stick will stand up in it. Dont waste your time saving 3 bucks a gallon at the home center.
That's a pretty good plan, Bob. If for any reason the OP can't spray I'd use a power roller. I have one that works like a caulking gun. You draw the paint into the hollow handle using a special fitting. Advancing the paint down (up when you're rolling) the tube to the roller, which has a perforated interior tube to allow paint to the nap, is done by squeezing a lever on the handle. I found it easy to use and waaay faster than the usual roller method.
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