How to Paint a Shed

As we are getting our home ready to sell, I decided that our backyard shed needed a facelift. After all, the less you have to deal with when buying a home, the more appealing it is. So let's move on to how to paint a shed the easy way.

How to Paint a Shed

First, we cut down the overgrown bushes surrounding the exterior. It's surprising what you can see when there isn't a mass of greenery overtaking stuff. And we tried to get rid of all the wasps. I think we won... however, it wasn't without getting stung a few times. Ow.

Next, spray everything down. You can do this with a power washer to get rid of all the dirt and grime. You definitely do not want to start painting immediately over a dirty surface. Your paint will not be smooth and the grime can ruin your brush if that is what you use.

As you can tell, this siding has faded in the sun over the years. I thought something light and bright was the best way to go with this space.

When the shed is clean, tape off everything you don;t want painted with painter's paper and tape.

This shed is vinyl siding so I used Sherwin Williams Extreme Bond Primer so my paint would stick well. One thing to consider when painting vinyl is you have to make sure your colors are compatible with vinyl. If they are not, your siding can warp in the sun.

To spray the shed I used the Graco Magnum X-7. This paint sprayer makes a big project move much faster.

You can view my video on how I primed my shed here. Click on the photo and video will begin.

Once the primer dries, apply 2 coats of Sherwin Williams Exterior Emerald Paint in Bright White. I used a satin finish so it wasn't too shiny, but it would still clean up nicely.

Finally, the last step was to paint the shutters. The shutters are painted with Sherwin Williams Peppercorn in Emerald Exterior as well. This is one of those paint colors I had to have specially formatted so it wouldn't warp the vinyl shutters.