Painting - Spray painting a room

I'm getting ready to begin painting my newly sheetrocked room. The room size is about 10x15, and the new sheetrock is on every wall and ceiling. It is a textured finished.

I have already applied a couple coats of primer with an airless sprayer. My confusion now is what would be the best approach to apply the colors. Of course, the ceiling is going to be a different color than the walls, which makes it obvious to me that I will only be able to use the sprayer for one or the other.

What would the pro's do?

Thanks...Randy

Usually 1 coat of primer is sufficent.

I usually spray the primer on walls and ceiling and then the finish coat on the ceiling using a brush and roller to finish the walls.

Yep...pretty much what I figured. Just thought I'd check and see if there was some magical trick to spraying the finish on the walls without getting the overspray on the ceiling. :)

Thanks Mark

Spray shields come in different widths but they are hard/tiresome to use and often don't leave a perfect line. Even with experience using them I usually have to go back with a brush and make it right.

magic tricks always costs extra :D

Oh yeah, I've tried the shields before. They would work great if the corner was perfect, but as we all know, that is usually the exception, rather than the rule.

No problem. I am very experienced with a brush and roller.

Thanks...Randy

just a note sprayers move a lot of dust around and it ends up on the wall and ceiling.
you should do a light pole sand with a 120 grit paper- not screen paper though.
unless the room is completly clean, it would finish ceiling with sprayer and roll walls.
good luck

It has either been assumed or forgotten but with any spray job, make sure to BACKROLL. This is a very important step in any spray job. The airless spray is meant to facilitate quick painting, but not REPLACE rolling. Meaning, use the sprayer to coat the walls, but ROLL them out. This serves 2 purposes. 1, knock down any areas with excessive spray coatings, or even out areas where the sprayer either "tailed" or sputtered. 2. Give the rolled "look". This makes any inevitable touch-ups much easier. Without the roller patterns, you cannot touch up without dragging out a sprayer, or ruining a wall.

It has been my experience that with a well trained crew it IS possible to spray both the ceiling and walls. Usually this is accomplished by spraying the ceiling first. Then cut in the wall you are working on. Then spray "down" about 1-1.5' from ceiling. Make sure to put on a considerable wet edge. Then the backroller can roll "up" to the cut-in (and roll out the whole wall as well). This is not an easy job however, and as a novice you may find it easier to simply spray and backroll the ceiling, and roll the walls w/out airless.

Good luck!

Interesting technique, groundbeef. I will have to remember that one, but only if I have the proper help. As it was I only had three people doing the painting...me, myself and I. :)

But thanks anyway for the tips. By the way, I did do the backrolling after the spraying. Someone else had already told me about that one, and after doing it I saw where it made a lot of sense. The sprayer is only used to get the paint to the surface so you can roll it out. But man, what a difference it makes in the amount of time to do a room.

By the way, for all of the pros out there I am wondering about how you cut in where the wall meets the ceiling. In the past I always used my brush to carefully make a small line where the wallmeets the ceiling and then brushed it out a little wider before rolling. Of course, with two coats I had to do this twice without getting any paint on the ceiling.

But, I was watching one of the DIY shows on TV one day and the guy doing some painting had a tip to brush as close to the ceiling as possible, leaving about a 1/4 inch gap along the top of the wall and then on the second coat come back and carefully paint that line along the top of the wall to cover the gap. I tried that tip for the first time on this paint job and I found it went much faster with better coverage at the top of the wall than with my previous method.

Is this how the pros do it now?

I always cut it in completetely. Once you aquire enough skill with a brush it is no harder to cut it in all the way than to almost cut it in.

Occasionally on certain jobs you might cheat and only roll the first coat, saving the brush work for the final coat. But this is not normal SOP.