I have a Graco ProX17.

How much masking will you need to do before spraying?

I've used them outside many times. Not sure how fun they are to use in an enclosed space.

They aren't hard to use but they are easy to misuse. You just have to feather the beginning and end.

If the basement was empty and you were covering everything you could knock it out it no time though. I would mask/cover/etc. anything you don't want primed.

My sister had a rental house that needed painted. She wasn't too worried about quality of the job just needed it white. One and a half stories. After everything was masked and covered, it took about 2 hours to do the whole thing. I've painted barn roofs etc. with them and you can certainly move right along on a big flat surface where you aren't worried about overspray.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

I'd have to cover 2 windows and a sliding glass door. This is an unfinished basement that is currently getting finished. So no carpet, no trim, interior doors, etc.

Can I not cover the windows and just avoid them with the sprayer and do that part with the roller? How much over spray/excess gets around?

With only two windows and a sliding glass door to mask, I would spray everything.

A quality sprayer is a must. I have a friend who owns paint stores and he loaned a good one to me when I built my house. I used it to prime the walls. I have 10 foot ceilings in a pretty big house that I sprayed. I set up rolling scaffolding and had my dad push me around while I sprayed. It was amazing at how quickly I primed the walls.

I own a Titan 440 sprayer.

I would still roll that. Not worth the prep time, the cleaning of the spray equipment, etc. I bet you will also use more paint spraying it.

I generally spray stuff when I don't want the brush strokes that a paint brush would leave. Although, the sherwin williams pro classic lays pretty nice and the brush strokes go away when used on wood.

Your call, but I would roll it.

I dislike spraying, but it is much, much faster than rolling from a pan. Anything more than about 100 square feet, and I'll break out the sprayer.

It's faster and easier to mask *everything*, except maybe the subfloor. Overspray goes everywhere. Get a Tyvek suit with hood, wear a facemask and a respirator with organic vapor cartridges. Backrolling works great: one person sprays, the other rolls. It'll take you an hour to mask and get ready, and an hour to spray and roll it (maybe 90 minutes).

Pretty user friendly. i'd recommend renting it vs. buying for your job, the rental place should walk you thru how to set it up, adjust the pressure/flow, and how to clean the machine.

You may also want to hang up plastic tarps to keep overspray from going into other areas. Happy Painting.

Yeah Sherwin Williams rents a heavy duty one. $50 a day with a $500 deposit. I'm thinking of at least doing the primer. I purchased a 5 gallon tub of primer, for ~800 square feet that should only need about 3 gallons so I have plenty.

Wife and I will attempt this when the kids go to bed. Or should we keep them out of the house? how much do these fumes spread?

Id keep the kids out of the way, if they are of helping age you can have them prep and tape things up. It's a good learning opportunity if they ever want to paint their room.
I'd recommend opening windows after you spray, may also want a cotton mask to keep paint out of your nose holes.

You should spray both primer and paint. Once you've done the masking the economies of scale will kick in, so spray your primer (back-roll it too), and then spray the paint (at least an hour or two later).

Even latex paint has a lot of VOCs; you should wear a respirator with organic vapor cartridges. Also, to keep those VOCs out of your living space (and your kids' rooms), you should set up a fan to maintain a negative pressure in your basement. It's easy - after you're done spraying, open one of the windows and put a fan in it blowing outwards; this will ensure that VOCs don't migrate upstairs in any significant amount. I'm assuming that you'll drape plastic sheeting in the stairwell to mostly seal it off.

And a head covering. Pretty much the full burqa.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Well I ended up just rolling, I didn't want to mess with the sprayer.

Now I have a few follow up questions on primer. I used Sherwin- Williams drywall primer. Well, Im not sure how it was suppose to go on, but after 2 coats, the primer is shit. I can still see the printed wording on the drywall itself and the difference between where the mudders mudded and the bare drywall.

I found an old can of zinsser 123 and decided to roll that on and wow was that a big difference. It actually went on pretty thick and covered everything beautifully. Now I need more of the zinsser to get the rest of the place done, including the trim since I don't want different shading on the paint.

So I guess my question is am I overthinking this? Is the SW primer fine and it just did a thin semi transparent coat before I apply the paint? Will I have two different shadings on the paint since half the room is coated with a different (and better) primer?

Yes, you are overthinking it. Just paint.

Not an expert but I do all my own painting. I have had primer go on as you are describing. What color are you using for top coat ? My suggestion and I may get some grief for this but since you have two coats of primer on go with top coat. I would suggest BEHR Marquee. I just painted our house last year using this brand. It's paint and primer in one which in the past I would not have used. On the walls that I had to remove wall paper removed I used two coats of Zinsser first. The bedrooms and upstairs hall were painted plaster with repairs I made. The reason I recommend behr marquee is wife choose a variety of natural colors, two of which were darker. I only needed two coats to achieve desired coverage and color. Some rooms I could have done one coat but I am anal. In the past I would have done two coats of primer and two top coats in each room. This stuff is expensive but worked really well for me. Goes on thick and I think I used more paint then if I had just used Sherman Williams which was my go to in the past.
So if you are worried about different shading from the different primers I think this would be an option.
Other thing is darker colors were only two coats. In our old house we had accent walls and one room that were dark brown and another room a burgundy. The brown accent wall was two coats of tinted primer and 4 top coats. Burgundy accent wall, 6 top coats to get color right. My daughters room in our new house is pink (painted over an aqua color) with a nook that is hot pink. Two coats for each with no priming.

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"I think I've cracked the code. double letters are cheaters except for perfect squares (a, d, i, p and y). So Leddy isn't a cheater... "

Thanks,

I already have the paint, the top of the line sherwin willaims (emerald i think). Its a light grey color, so not really that dark. I might just paint a room and see what happens. Worst case I got 3 gallons of paint for about 700 square feet. So I should be able to several coats of paint.

If it's emerald that's also paint and primer. Also makes Behr look cheap in price. My sons room is a light grey painted over another aqua color. No problems

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"I think I've cracked the code. double letters are cheaters except for perfect squares (a, d, i, p and y). So Leddy isn't a cheater... "

Ha! They had a 40% off sale a few weeks ago so I think the price was about the same.