Painting questions

[LinuxRandal]

Do you guys prefer brushes and rollers or airless?

I have a chance to buy a decent airless reasonably, but the last person I knew who did, got his returned to him dead. (I was in line to borrow it).

I've just never used one and don't know how bad the overspray is, or how to store it.

[mrojec]

I guess it depends on the job, how much you want to spend on equipment, and how much you want to mask, among other things. I used a Graco airless some years back to paint beadboard plywood soffit prior to installation. It worked great and was fast, but I sprayed outside so I wasn't very aware of the amount of overspray and masking wasn't an issue. On inside walls I like a roller cuz I don't like to mask a whole lot. I've never used one, but those manual pump/reservoir devices for rollers look like they'd work reasonably well. My 2cents....
Mark

[p8ntblr]

Depends on how big the job is. I have one and it's a huge time saver for big jobs. Took me less than an hour to paint the outside of a 2-room house (not including masking). Then it took almost as long to clean out. Not difficult mind you, just a little time consuming. If your doing 1 or even 2 rooms especially indoors it's probably easier to do it manually.

[movnup]

I sprayed my whole house a couple of years ago (one primer, two coats of paint + different colored trim), and used about eighty gallons. With spaying you have to assume overspray will get everwhere so that means you have to mask everything and use paint shields so you don't get it all over the place. I was also using a trim nozzle to narrow the spray pattern.

The only way I have used it inside is with 7 mil plastic sheeting cutting off the room completely, a full paint suit w/ hood, and a resperator / goggles. You see professionals use it on new construction or sealing off the room completely for remodels without the carpeting installed yet.

As a side bar it takes about 1/2 hour and 25 gallons of water each time to flush out the sprayer for cleanup. A trick I learned on some forum was with rollers you can freeze the roller / brush over night in plastic wrap, warm it up the next day and you're good to go. I really don't like to paint and spraying is very fast once your set up but I learned that is just doesn't work inside unless you faithfully follow the steps above.

PS ....I tried a wagner power roller and it wasn't all the great and I returned it.

[ivwshane]

For large areas (like doors and bigger) I like to use a sprayer but for trim work and small pieces that aren't pre installed I prefer a foam brush (NOT a foam roller). I find that the foam brush creates a nice smooth finish as opposed to a light texture finish with a foam roller and it doesn't leave any brush marks like a normal paint brush. The only negative seems to be that it requires more coats.

[thestinker]

I recently painted a caibnet with a foam roller and it turned out like crap. I will be lightly sanding it and painting it with a brush or a fuzzy naped "trim out pad". I get real good results with those.

[sparkeyjames]

I just bought a new set of bifold doors with fixed in place louvers and will be getting the cheap HF gravity feed air sprayer to apply the stain and urethane coats to it. As far as foam rollers on flat wood it still leaves a nap with latex paint. With urethane thinned out a little the (extra fine) foam roller leaves a glass smooth finish (hi gloss).

[Curly Qsawn]

Rollers and brushes. I don't paint enough sq ft to justify the prep/cleanup of a sprayer. I normally do one room at a time. I just recently went to a small bucket and a 12" center mount roller for the big areas (ceiling). I really like the bucket better than a paint tray. I found a 5 gallon mop bucket and plastic bags for liners to be a real treat after fumbling around with paint trays.

[Curly Qsawn]

By the way, does anyone have a good technique for painting baseboards in a carpeted room?

[Slik Geek]

LOML loves to change our wall colors regularly, so she has more painting experience than most mortals.

She likes foam brushes and "normal" paint rollers. We recently discovered that paying more for the roller insert is worth the investment - don't buy the cheapo ones. It really made a difference in the quality of the paint appearance.

My wife has been wrapping brushes and rollers in Saran plastic wrap for years to avoid cleanup until the entire job is done. She hasn't tried putting them in the fridge or freezer, hasn't seemed necessary. (I don't like the idea of any paint fumes with my food - even if the wrap minimizes that).

We spent a few bucks more for canvas drop cloths a few years ago. Very good investment. Home Depot carries them.

We have an "airless" sprayer. Only use it when we can paint outdoors. It mostly sits on the shelf.

[LinuxRandal]

Gonna be painting the outside, however probably gonna do inside too.

I found one cheap, but considering it's mostly trim, I think I will do without. Thanks

[os1kne]

For painting the exterior of a house, an airless sprayer is definitely the way to go. I painted my house about 18 months ago and rented a pro-grade airless unite from Sherwin Williams for ~ $40/day. I was able to get 2 coats on my 2 story home in a day. Most of the time is spent doing prep work, scraping, masking, etc. It does take a bit of time to get the hang of the airless sprayer and cleaning it is time consuming. (It went so well that my grandmother recruited me to paint her house this summer.)

[frumper64]

Canvas drop cloths

I'll add one more vote for buying canvas drop cloths for indoor painting. You won't believe how much easier they make things than plastic drop cloths. You can walk on them and move ladders around and they still stay in place. Harbor Freight has them on sale periodically for around $10 and they are well worth it.