Back before we bought the farm, we lived in a big house with a huge cellar which was begging to be turned into a movie room. But with white walls in there, it was a bit too bright for our plans. So after a bit of advice from a friend, we painted the room terracotta. And I have to say we were really pleased with the results…
Until it came time to repaint the walls white right before we moved out. Dark colors on deeply textured walls is not fun at all to paint over with a roller. We knew it was time to find some heavy artillery to get the job done (while saving our sanity).
Enter the Wagner Airless Paint Crew.
This machine is just what it sounds like — a great big paint sprayer that is more or less like what the pros use. Yes, I’m sure theirs are more high tech and spiffy, but this machine was definitely more than sufficient to get a job like ours completed in a reasonable amount of time.
One great thing about this Wagner paint sprayer is that you can load up a ton of paint at once, and not have to keep refilling (something we experienced a lot while using the refillable wand paint sticks from Wagner — which also totally rock) but using a big system like this does not necessarily save you paint. In fact, I think it actually uses quite a bit more. But we were total amateurs as well. And I’m sure that if you adjust it well and use the right settings, you will have better results. We just did the best we could with what we had and got the job done!
And as you can see in the photo below, there is also a filter which keeps clumps and other debris from pulling down into the system and clogging up the lines.
Something that is crucial when using a machine like this, is that you mask off and cover anything and everything you don’t want to end up speckled with paint. From ceiling to floor. Seriously. Otherwise you’ll end up cleaning the pinhead sized droplets off of everything which is not hard with a water based paint, but not all that much fun.
And you also really want to make certain that you keep your arm moving whenever you have the spray running. Otherwise you’ll end up with big paint blobs and runs, and you definitely don’t want that! It’s hardest to get that technique right when you’re just starting a new line of spraying.
There was always a bit of “assembly required” and let me assure you that although we have no qualms about tackling home renovation projects, we generally leave the appliance repairs to the pros. Thankfully there is a handy little setup and breakdown guide right on the machine (in multiple languages) so you can’t lose it — and you always know just what to do when you want to use the machine.
And there’s a few other smart little instructional diagrams around the machine as well to help you out when things get tricky.
Overall, the Wagner Airless Paint Crew was well worth our investment and it made painting over the terracotta walls a whole lot easier. We were having nightmares about doing it by hand, even with the refillable roller sticks, since there were so many deep crevices in the wall. We didn’t have much use for it after that project and ultimate sold it on eBay for nearly as much as we paid for it. A pretty sweet deal in our opinion.
Would we buy one again for a project like that? Probably. It was easy to use and not too pesky to clean out either. But don’t even think about leaving this for a while and coming back later to flush the system. You’re just going to regret. Thankfully, we didn’t make that mistake but I’m sure it would not be pleasant!
Have you ever bought things that were crucial for just one home renovation project? What did you end up doing with those things? Do you still have them sitting around?
I have to admit that we have a bunch of stuff that we only used once and just saved for the next time we might need them. Some stuff is just too much of a pain to get rid of — or seems to hold no resale value. And only now, as we’re going through so many things and cleaning out boxes, are we coming across things and realizing that we probably should have found a new home for them long ago. Storing all this stuff was actually cluttering our minds as well, it seems, so this move is really starting to free us up in unexpected ways as well.
