How To Paint A Designer Shed

4 Materials
$50
6 Hours
Easy

The problem was that I have a small town garden and I desperately needed a shed for it. No matter how small the shed was going to be you wouldn't miss it! That's when I decided to make the shed a feature so that it would be something fun to look at in the garden. I already had some bright and colourful Marimekko planters (see here) in the garden so I thought I'd paint the shed to match.


Marimekko is a well known Finnish design company famous for their bold and colourful prints and textiles.

It is so easy to put a shed in your garden now as there are alternatives to a concrete base. I used plastic honycomb tiles filled with gravel for the base of the shed.

As this was a new shed I was able to paint it before building it. However, you can use the same method to paint an exsisting shed.

My favourite pattern is called Marimekko Unikko. I had some paper napkins in that design. The pattern was made up of a series of squashed poppies. I drew out 3 different shaped poppies onto a large piece of paper using the paper napkin as a guide. You can download these designs from my blog (link at the end).

I cut out the poppie designs and then drew around them on the sides of the wooden shed.

I then painted the outline of these poppies onto the wood. They looked a bit like clouds at this stage.

Then using the poppy templates I then drew the center of the flowers.

I then painted the center of the poppies and the stems.

Next, the final small centers were painted in a darker colour.

Finally, I finished off the wood shed panels by painting the black background around the painted flowers.

As my shed was going in the corner of the garden only 2 sides would be visible. So I simply painted the hidden sides of the shed in the background colour.

I love how the shed turned out. It makes me smile everytime I look out of the kitchen window and see it.

I had some white paint left so I white washed the inside to brighten it up. The only trouble now is that I'm reluctant to fill the shed with all my junk which was the whole point of having the shed in the first place!


I have loads of crafts and DIYs inspired by Marimekko (Finnish Design) on my blog you can see them here.

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Claire at Pillarboxblue
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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  • Lynn Lynn on Sep 26, 2019

    I have a very ugly metal shed that I see from my kitchen window... I want to look out at it and smile!

    Any helpful hints on cleaning/painting/priming it before I put on a design? Any suggestions would be helpful.

  • Cheryl Cheryl on Sep 26, 2019

    Could you explain more about the base? I understand it to be plastic, like a tarp, then honeycomb tiles, which is really cool and gravel.

    The shed comes with a base to set on?

    love it, cute for me with problem city yards!

  • June June on Jun 06, 2021

    First off I love the idea of the shed to make it attractive. My question is : What is the reason for the flooring you used ?

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