To roll or to spray, that is the question

[johnny1290]

I'm a novice painter, just done a little interior painting before but its beeen years. My apartment is falling apart, water stains on the textured ceiling, some plaster repair needed(I'm sure caused by water).

I could live with the walls, but the ceiling has gotta be taken care of and since the place hasn't been painted in 10 years and has paint lifting/plaster damage in various places, I figure we may as well do the whole damn thing while we're at it.

SO, the big question, if I'm going to do the walls and the ceiling, am I better off getting a sprayer like this one:

http://ebay.cjspray.com/images/X5.jpg
Magnum X5™
LIGHT-DUTY Airless Paint Sprayer. Finish Projects Faster!

for $175 shipped off ebay and just going to town on everything except the oil based painted trim around the doorways and on the doors, and brushing that?

OR

am I better off rolling it?

I was thinking with the textured ceiling, and the fact that I'm gonna have to tarp the furniture/carpet anyway, I would possibly save time by spraying.

Will I need to back roll it though?

This is an apartment, not a house, I just need it to look better than it does now(which I'm sure was done the absolute cheapest way possible with day laborers) and speed is important.

So does it make sense in my case to go ahead and spray?

It *seems* like a good idea to me, but I know most people roll on wall paint so there must be good reason for it!

Thanks guys, I just don't trust the home depot 'service' guys to be of any help!

[rsanter]

with a sprayer the painting goes very fast. the masking and the covering goes very slow and you will have to mask or very well cover everything

with the roller you will have to do little to no masking but you should throw down a drop cloth. the painting and cutting in will take a longer time bit you dont have to mask

the only time I have prefered to spray is when I bought a used house and decided to repaint and change the carpet before we moved in. all the rest of the time I have used a roller

bob

[billymade]

If your just doing a one time project and not for work; just rent a airless for a day or afternoon.... do all the prep first and be ready before you go rent the unit. Overspray is the main issue with using a airless; is the apartment empty or full? You will need drop cloths to cover everything you don't want sprayed; rolling seems to be better for smaller projects... spraying lends itself more to houses that are empty or new homes... allot of it depends on how much your life/stuff can be interrupted. If your doing the live/paint thing; you might do room by room; that way to can move stuff into rooms not being painted and when finished with one, moved stuff into finished room etc. Good luck! :)

[eric87]

i would just roll it . if you are living in the area that you are painting the sprayer will make a big mess. you would have to cover everything with drops or plastic.

[Bolster]

I have a friend who's a professional painter. He sprays AND THEN rolls. "Spray for coverage, roll to make it stick" is how he explains it. Seems like twice the work but he says it's well worth the effort years down the road.

But you said apartment which might indicate you don't own it...in which case, whatever's faster. If the room's empty, then spray is really, really fast.

I own that Magnum X5 (or the previous model of it) I have a tip for ya...buy the blue goop to put in it during storage, don't scrimp and use paint thinner. Keep the machine really clean and it will perform like a champ. First time you paint, expect a 45 minute cleanup or more!!

[lasteagle83]

Roll the ceiling, just use a long nap roller and cross-roll it. I'll second the idea that sprayers are best for empty houses. 3 drips take far less time to clean up than thousands of droplets of overspray.

Also, I'm a BIG fan of Ace Hardware's "Ceiling Magic" paint. You add the blue dye to it to see where you've painted (helps tremendously when you have heavily textured ceilings like in my house); the blue dye fades out within a day, depending on humidity/temp. Lowe's sells a similar paint with a purple dye, but I didn't have very good luck with it - the dye would fade out when you got 2 roller widths over; much too fast to tell where you'd been.

[usa#1]

If you have the "pop corn" style ceiling and roll it, the "pop corn" may come off depending how it was applied. I usually spray the "pop corn" type ceilings and roll the walls. Like everyone has said, you'll really have to cover every thing up good when you spray. I agree with the comments on clean up. Make sure to really clean the sprayer if you want it to work next time you need it.