Thread: Interior house painting

Tell me about it!! I'm just about to start on my place...all of it ...inside and outside of a large Queenslander.
I've often thought about spraypainting. Aparrantly to get a good job you need a very good quality spraygun especially if you'r using water based paint and get the paint spot on to the right consistancy.
Whats giving me nightmares is about 80 metres of verandah railing + about 40 windows to reputty and paint. Then of course is what seems like square miles of VJ walls and ceilings

Originally Posted by Ranga

Sucks. End of story.

Anyone had any experience with interior spray painting? I figure it's got to be easier, except for managing overspray and the cost of the spray unit.

I have an air compressor and spray gun - can this be used for the job?

not advisable,better of going to a reputable hire place and get the proper tool for the job,as for over spray,you can get all sorts of rolls of plastic film and tape that covers over windows /doors and the like,try some of the proper paint shops like bristol,dulux or solver to name a few,for a few tips and advice

failing that, you could always hire a painter to do the job for you

the sprayer will use more paint due to overspray, and you still need to have someone roll it in behind you, but boy its a hell of alot easier and quicker.




oh and painting sucks

for get your compressor and conventional spray gun, too small. You need an airless, for around $400p/w hire. Now don't go and faint on me, I've been doing this crap for 20+ years. So I can tell you in one day on a spray gun you can cover what 2 guys will do for a week.

If you are going to spray and the house is full of furniture than you have to either clear the rooms, or bundle it into the middle and cover it, as well as the floors.

Buy yourself some disposable plastic sheets and cut them into 3 or 4, tape them around the lights so the drape a fair bit. You can use paper, smaller pieces of plastic, but a sheet at $3 cut into 3 or 4, is cheap and saves fiddling around with better quality taping. Good for fans as well. Tape up power points and light switches and the like.

You can also cut these disposable plastic sheets for over your windows, and tape up the whole window. Go for clear over coloured as they let the light in and you can see what you are doing inside. Shops have specialised masking machines with tape and plastic all in one, but they can be costly for a one off job. It will seem to take forever but once you pull the trigger your in front.
Probably to tape the floors at the skirting, a cheap masking machine is probably easier.

WASH the walls, just sugar soap and some bleach. Either use a rag or a sponge mop if you like. Forget ceiling unless they are mouldy.

Fill defects, sand walls and touch up defects with a sealer undercoat.

With the spray gun ask the hire shop for an extension bar if possible, and a flexible head. The bar elevates the tip closer to the ceiling, and the flexi head get you into places you cant reach. Other wise you are up and down a ladder 5000 times if you are just holding the gun in your hand.

When moving your arm left to right, or vice versa, the trick is to roll your wrist as you go and keep the spray fan at right angles to the surface. If you pendulum your arm with the gun sort of in a straight line with your arm, you wast a lot of paint and over spray everything.

Knock over the ceiling fist, overlapping each pass by half keeping the tip/gun about 12 inched from the ceiling.

Once you are happy with that, cut the walls into the ceiling, maybe bring the cutting in down 8 to 10 inches if it's you first time. Spray the walls again overlapping by half. Angle the gun down when spraying up near the ceilings and you shouldn't over spay the ceilings. You can also get someone to roll the walls behind you as you go if it's not going well.

Hmmm... Food for thought. I'm trying to do the job as cheap as possible, and maybe spraying might be more than I can justify on a place I'm looking to sell (and will probably be knocked down to build a palace like the bloke next door!).

Also, having 2 small kids in the house makes it hard to do it room by room. It seems that when using a sprayer, you're best off taping everything up and preparing the whole house, then hitting the whole house as soon quick as possible to lower hire costs. Perhaps I could do this on a weekend, and take the kids to Nana's house for the weekend

I didn't realise you also still had to roll when using a sprayer, but I assume this would be a quick once-over?