We’ve been scraping popcorn off the ceiling and getting ready to texture it and the walls in my office. Doing a knockdown on the ceiling, and orange peel on the walls. Going to buy an airless sprayer from Home Depot to do the painting.
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Rand, on the off chance you’re not experienced with airless sprayers, beware – they are not all created equal. Look up and read reviews on them first. Some, especially some of the Chinese-made ones, are junk that won’t even last out one project.
Also, make sure you check out the paint-thinning recommendations (and for some paints, you don’t need to thin) and after you’re done painting (preferably right after you’re done) clean the sprayer out really well.
Also, make sure you have the correct sprayer tips for what you want to do. Better by far to check that now, than discover the issue when you’ve already opened the paint (I made that particular mistake myself once).
For a small job like an office and ceiling, a handheld unit is probably good enough, assuming you aren’t short. It also saves a lot on storage space, if that’s an issue.
Good luck, and best wishes.
I’ve read a lot of reviews. We’re getting this one (recommended here).
That looks to be a very good one IMHO.
I especially like that it’s not made in China (You won’t find a pro painter using Chinese sprayers, and there’s a reason for that.). I also like that it can use 5-gallon buckets too.
What is the best kind of PPE for use of a sprayer, especially indoors?
Half-mask respirator with an organic-vapor cartridge? Something else?
A lot depends on what you’re spraying. Latex, being water-based, is usually far less noxious than oil-based. Epoxy-based is often quite bad as well. And, you don’t want to inhale the particles of any of it.
So, my preference is a PPE that handles both particulates and fumes. I think they’re called elastomeric these days – a full-face sealing respirator. I use a 2-valve intake type, with both a charcoal cartridge and a particulate filter cartridge on both intakes. And, this came in darn handy in the pandemic; I replaced the charcoal filters with a P-100 set, so it’s quite a bit better than a medial-grade P-95 for reducing virus particles. Handy to have around, just in case. I also use it for any situation where I’m dealing with fine particulates, like sanding plaster.
However, no mask is perfect. So, if I’m going to be using something very noxious (like brake cleaner), I turn things around; I get my air from outside, and pipe it into my respirator (I just remove the filters to do this, and use one of the intake holes). I stick a small shop-vac outside, and use it on blower (with a reducer) to feed me fresh air via a couple of linked vacuum hoses.
I’m not a fan of texturing. I think it’s ugly and a way to hide badly done drywall. I’d recommend a smooth wall, if possible.
Since it’s Rand’s home office, I’d go with even more texture, like the central part of the fusion reactor building in Aliens. It had a very organic look that conveyed the reality of being in a hive of deadly face-hugging alien predators that used paralyzed humans to incubate their offspring. To me, that’s a far better way to convey the realities of office life than trying to mimic the feel of an orderly row of cubicles.