How to: Paint a Wall With a Paint Sprayer

9 Materials
$275
2 Hours
Easy

As an avid DIY’er, you’ve likely considered adding a paint sprayer to your arsenal. They are fabulous tools: painting a room or a piece of furniture is a snap, they’re speedy, and they ensure a nice, even coating of paint or stain, especially if you have miles of material to cover.

Before: the living room wall.

As my folks have always been color-adverse, it was time to get some color in their lives. Let’s take a field trip to use the Wagner Flexio 5000 paint sprayer.

Using a paint sprayer still requires prep and many of the same tools as painting a wall with a roller. Here are the tools we gathered:



  • Edging paint brush
  • Painters tape
  • Drop cloths
  • Rags
  • Extension cord
  • Goggles
  • Dust masks

Hot tip: protecting outlets and switches with plastic wrap and tape makes for speedier painting.


To begin, we removed outlet and switch plates, covering the electrical parts with plastic and painters tape. Doing this allowed us to spray right over them.

Hot tip: masking off areas not receiving paint 24” wide avoids overspray.


With a brush, I then edged as one would do normally. Though, if you mask off surrounding areas, tape a plastic drop cloth to the top of the baseboard and protect the ceiling, one can avoid this time-draining task all together.

The sprayer assembled, plugged in, and ready

The Wagner Flexio 5000 is straightforward to use, even for beginners as we both were. Luckily, Wagner has designed a tool that was simple to assemble and operate.

Using a plastic sprayer cup liner bag sure makes clean up later even more effortless.

It’s important to test the paint sprayer to get a feel for things, how it sprays, the spray area, and to get the technique down. Plus there are narrow and wide spray patterns so test those out as well. Wagner includes a handy test paper with clear instructions providing the perfect lesson.

Getting a feel for it “for real” takes an extra second but once rolling along, the pace picks up.


Once we got the feel for the sprayer, it was time to paint the wall using the iSpray nozzle. Steady motions and sticking within 6”-8” of the wall are key to a smooth, pristine, even finish. Even my mom had an easy go of it!

Pretty fast it becomes obvious how efficiently and quickly an area can be painted with this sprayer.


One of the great things about the Wagner Flexio 5000 sprayer is that the heavy parts are not in your hand which makes handling and maneuvering the sprayer manageable, even on a ladder. 


I didn’t mask off areas, using a piece of cardboard instead. I did end up with a little overspray so be sure to mask off appropriately. If you do get paint on the floor then read this guide on how to get paint off hardwood floors for advice on how to remove it.


Look how far the air hose stretches while on a ladder!

Clean up is a cinch as there’s no paint-filled hose to clean, merely the paint container, the tip, and the top, all parts that disassemble in seconds.


Fill the canister with water, running it to shoot out the remaining paint.

The sprayer head disassembles for cleaning.

Thanks to the sprayer too, the paint dried faster than rolling so we were able to reassemble the living room sooner.

A job well done thanks to the Wagner Flexio 5000 paint sprayer!


Disclosure: This post was written in collaboration with Wagner. All opinions are my own.

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Becky at Flipping the Flip
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  3 questions
  • Pat Pat on Nov 21, 2019

    can you spray a ceiling with the sprayer, or does it have to remain horizontal to work proplerly?

  • Darlyne Darlyne on Nov 21, 2019

    What did you use on the ceiling to protect overspray?


  • Deb Deb on Nov 21, 2019

    What brand of paint did you use and what color? You said it was latex. Did you have to thin it?

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  • Miriam Illions Miriam Illions on Nov 21, 2019

    Hey Becky! Love the color you chose and your tutorial is fabulous!

  • Bek Bek on Nov 21, 2019

    That does it. I have to have a paint sprayer. But I will be very carefully researching them! I need something like that, that will allow for a variety of paint types. I looked at several that wouldn't even take latex! But I MUST have a paint sprayer!

    • Oh great! I'm so glad the info I provided was helpful! Yes, this sprayer takes latex with no problem. Be sure to check out those plastic liner bags if you'll be using other types of paint as that'll make clean up a snap. Thank you!

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