Did you know that airless paint sprayers can turn the most dreaded projects into the best project ever? Have you wondered if you can use an airless sprayer inside of your home?

This honestly is probably one of the most interesting projects I have ever tackled! It started with a need to makeover my 20 year old bedroom furniture.

It was time for an update that was inexpensive and to me that means paint! It’s really beautiful furniture and I know there are those that never would paint such a beautiful piece, but I needed to see something different in my bedroom leftover from my married life.

Nightstand Before

The biggest issue I faced was the size of the French carved armoire.  Trying to move it into my home was nearly impossible.  That posed the biggest challenge to an update with paint.  I DREADED having to prime and paint this piece knowing how LONG it was going to take.

Armoire Before

Since I am a person who has learned to work smarter not harder, I reached out to Wagner Spray Tech (after meeting them at the Haven bloggers conference) in a plea for help.

Can I use one of your paint sprayers to spray this armoire INSIDE my home? Is this a crazy idea?

Luckily, they answered and provided me with a free Wagner Studio Pro Sprayer and sponsored this post to show what is possible!

My experience and advice about the products used in this post are my own and unbiased.

This post is sponsored by Wagner®. I love a company who believes in their products.

First, let’s get into the paint project in general.  I worked for Valspar (paint sold at Lowe’s), so I am a super fan of their products!

Tips for Painting a Stained Piece of Furniture

Supplies for Painting

1. You MUST prime before you paint with any kind of paint other than chalk paint.
2. To prevent the stain from bleeding through to the final color, I always use Valspar’s Bonding Primer – it sticks to anything!
3. For a semi-gloss finish that requires NO top coat, I recommend Valspar Cabinet Enamel for painting furniture.

Paint Supplies

Here are the general supplies that were unique to this project. This post contains affiliate links, but all recommendations are my own!

• Paint Strainer – for removing any debris from the paint before spraying.
• Masking Tape – use the inexpensive stuff for taping the floor (I made the mistake of using Frog Tape, which is more expensive).
• Frog Tape – to tape the walls or when masking areas you don’t want to receive paint.
• Painter’s Plastic – this was used to protect the floors, walls, and furniture and is MUCH cheaper than drop cloths.
• Spray Shelter– great all purpose shelter for spray painting anything. Helps contain overspray to the floor.
• Wagner Studio Paint Sprayer – airless painting tool.

Paint Color: Lowe’s / Valspar Light Raffia 3008-10B

Set-Up for Using a Paint Sprayer in a Spray Shelter

Mask Floor with Plastic

Spray Shelter Assembled

Night Stand in Shelter

1. Within a garage, move out cars to an alternate location and sweep the floor.
2. Mask floor or grass with two layers of painter’s plastic and adhere with tape.
3. Assemble and place spray shelter – this took 10 minutes and I HIGHLY recommend watching this video first (thank goodness for it!)
4. Tape over any areas that may have gotten ripped while placing shelter.
5. Place furniture in center and toward back of shelter to minimize over spray. Get a neighbor to help – thanks, George for helping me!

The Wagner Studio Pro Sprayer Gave me Back 4 Days of my LIFE! That’s 2 weekends people!

Now I need to share why the paint sprayer turned a dreaded paint project into the best ever!  The truth is dry time is the real enemy, but hand painting requires so much more time.

Spraying inside of the shelter and my garage was a piece of cake! The only issue I faced is bugging my neighbor every few hours to help me rotate out nightstands, but if you have a willing person to help you then you eliminate that issue.

Painting the Armoire was a whole new challenge

It’s time to be honest. After I sprayed inside the shelter, I got scared to spray inside of my house. I wasn’t sure how I was going to contain the overspray and that is a huge concern. So I proceeded to hand prime the armoire in my bedroom and it took 5 HOURS of unpleasant time I can’t get back.

My Instagram story has me referring to this project as “the worst idea I’ve ever had” and the project as “the devil”.  I was so upset that I’d started this project and worried I couldn’t finish it.

I decided to do the unthinkable and use a paint sprayer INSIDE of my master bedroom!

Pin It for Later!

See that fabulous 3-D carving on top? Well a paint brush doesn’t reach behind it.  So what did I do? Covered the close-by horizontal surfaces and hit that section VERY carefully with the iSpray attachment. Joy! It worked and I could contain the overspray.

Primed Armoire

Before I went to bed that night, I planned the fortress of plastic

There it is folks! How this dreaded paint project was the best project ever because I switched from hand painting to using an airless paint sprayer. That’s how I saved myself 2 weekends!

If I would have tried to hand paint the armoire, it would have taken one day per coat of paint because I would have needed 2 coats.

That is 3 days alone and because hand painting creates a thicker coat I wouldn’t have been able to touch the armoire until it dried overnight. This would have killed 4 days of my life.

Armoire Painted with a Paint Sprayer

The finish NEVER would have been as smooth as with a paint sprayer and I would have had a very hard time getting into all of the carved detail creating a frustrating experience.

I’m SO happy with the outcome of this project I’m going to show you what I did!

Set-Up for Using  a Paint Sprayer Inside a Room

This set up is CRITICAL!. The Control Nozzle Sprayer leaves a fine mist of dried paint EVERYWHERE. Wait for a day that no rain is the forecast and it’s cool enough to keep the windows open for most of the day.

You will make yourself a plastic FORTRESS! I used furniture sliders to help move all of my furniture.  Click here for what I used.

Cover Horizontal Surfaces with Plastic

1. Push all additional furniture pieces away from furniture being sprayed. Take down adjacent art from walls.
2. OPEN windows for ventilation and turn-off ceiling fans. TURN OFF HVAC, so you don’t pull paint dust into system.
3. Cover ALL horizontal surfaces with painter’s plastic and tape gaps.
4. Use painter’s plastic up walls behind, to the left, and right of the furniture piece you are spraying. Mask off door openings to adjacent rooms.
5. Place extra tape around the feet of the furniture you spraying to avoid the force of the paint spray to make it through to the floor.
6. For an additional layer of protection around the furniture being sprayed, place cardboard.

Cover Walls Behind, Left and Right of Furniture

What Comes in the Wagner Studio Pro Paint Sprayer Box

Let’s talk about this fabulous paint sprayer and how to use it to paint furniture! CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE on Amazon

Photo Credit: Wagner

Are you intimidated by the thought of using an airless paint sprayer? Please don’t be! This was the first time I used a paint sprayer. You can become a pro with a little practice on the paper they include or on some cardboard.

I was up and running plus comfortable with the paint sprayer in under 30 minutes. The sprayer itself looks large, but that white box is really a handy storage unit that holds:

1. Handle/Air Hose Assembly
2. Black Tubing
3. Control Finish Nozzle
4. iSpray Nozzle
5. Practice Paper
6. Manual

“Trust me, I sighed when I saw all of this. I thought it was going to be hard to figure out how to use two different attachments. It’s NOT!”

Wagner included really easy to understand instructions and the two sprayer attachments are simple to use.

iSpray Nozzle – Broad surface coverage for thicker materials and leaves a coarse finish. I used this for the Valspar Bonding Primer, which I strained:

Wagner iSpray Nozzle

Bonding Primer

Control Finish Nozzle – Smaller project coverage for thinner materials and leaves a fine finish. I used this for the Valspar Cabinet Enamel:

Wagner Control Finish Nozzle

Spray Settings

Please follow the instructions that come with the Wagner Studio Pro Sprayer (click here for the user manual) and adjust while practicing on a piece of cardboard.

NO THINNING WAS REQUIRED ON EITHER PRODUCT I USED.

For the iSpray and Primer, I used Max Output (white dial on trigger) and Max Air Power plus a wide spray. Valspar Bonding Primer is thick primer so I wanted as much coverage and force as possible.

Air Power Setting

Spray Width Setting

For the Control Finish Nozzle, I used Mid Output (black dial on trigger) and 8 Air Power for a finer finish. There is not a setting for the spray width.

Material Output on Trigger

Time and Coats

The nightstands:

• Each coat of primer and paint took 15 minutes at MOST to apply and this was me being a perfectionist!
• The primer and paint was dry to the touch in 2 to 3 hours.
• Only ONE coat of primer and ONE coat of paint was required!
• The paint was fully dry overnight and fully cured 2 days and objects could be placed on the surface of the nightstand.
• Clean-up just required hot water and some patience, but wasn’t difficult.

The armoire paint project started at 8am and by 1pm the room was back in use. AMAZING!

The Armoire paint sprayer part of the project in particular amazed me:

Plastic draping = 1 hour

Painting = 45 minutes

Dry time = 2 hours

Clean up = 1 hour

Final Outcome

Look at the beautiful finish the paint sprayer delivered with one coat! The paint is amazing, but the way it was applied using a sprayer provided the deep coverage in the carved areas of the nightstands and armoire.

This went from the worst paint project to the best paint project EVER and I’ve done a ton of painting.

UPDATE: I did another HUGE project using my airless paint sprayer that includes video tutorials: Click Here

At this point, I hope you are as impressed as I am with the Wagner Studio Pro Paint Sprayer and are now inspired to try some of your own projects! Next on the agenda for the paint sprayer? My office cabinets, chairs, a coffee table, some baskets, a lamp…

The great news is I am EXCITED because I know how fast and easy these projects will be because I’ll be using my airless paint sprayer!

Have you thought about painting cabinets? Click here for how to paint cabinets!

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Until next time…

Porch Daydreamer

Tracey