I Decided to Paint my Smallest Shed Today.

I was moved to paint my shed today, I know not why, idly surfing the net this morning I was overcome with an irresistible artistic urge to paint my smallest shed.

The smallest shed was acquired back at the end of last year when I was summarily evicted from the then exiting smallest shed (now the second smallest) together with my definitive collection of gasoline powered tools, THAT small shed has become a sort of shrine to the garden gods, odd potions, pots, bags of expensive dirt (sorry-potting soil) and chemicals mingling with the usual collection of hand tools, which inexplicably were allowed to remain.

Yes, that is a small refrigerator on the right, it holds that vital accompaniment to serious gardening , cold beer.

The new smallest shed was purchased from an “Amish Builder”. I know little about the Amish religion except that it forbids a lot of things, singing, dancing, drinking alcoholic beverages, driving motorized vehicles, in fact most things that make a young man’s pulse quicken (probably that too!). But it does not forbid shed building, on the contrary building sheds must be seen by the Amish to be so unlike those other things that such activity is positively encouraged. All along the main roads hereabouts there are signs proclaiming “Amish Built Sheds” and there they are, waiting by their hundreds to be snapped up by the general public. I confess that even I, dwelling as I do in the farthest reaches of agnosticism, felt a little more righteous knowing that my shed was thrown together by a God fearing Amishman rather than some near pagan refugee from Central America.

The summary nature of my eviction and the encroaching winter meant that my new smallest shed choice was limited to those on display, it was late in the year and the popular and decorative models were all long gone, I finally settled on a ten by twelve with a door in the small end. The only one available was a rather bilious bright yellow color with white trim. It was greeted with derision on it’s arrival and has been much remarked upon as a garden eyesore for lo these many months.
Our other sheds are, to my eye, a pleasing rustic brown stain over bare wood with dark brown painted trim. I had enough stain and paint to “do” the new smallest shed and today releasing my long pent up artistic energy I launched into the task.

Heavy bodied dark brown stain over bright yellow paint, an odd result, laughingly described as looking like “a rotten pumpkin” by the adult supervision. “They laughed at Turner when he went all dreamy on them” I responded, “and Picasso when he started drawing ears in the middle of people’s foreheads, you wait till it’s finished, my masterful treatment of the trim and the overhang will make you take notice.”

“Why are you painting stripes on it? You’ve taken something that was mildly unpleasant and made it hideous, it looks like a jaundiced zebra”

“I’m cutting in,” I explained patiently through gritted teeth “there are all these joints in the siding that have to be painted with a brush before I can roll the rest on, in fact I rather like the look, I may leave it like this.”
“The hell you will, I’ll call someone in to finish it.”
“That’s what they told the Pope when he wanted the Sistene chapel ceiling done. ‘Get a man in Pope and have a nice off-white artex job, you’ll love it’ instead of that what does he do, he calls an artist”

I think she left then to pack a travel bag.

“It’ll darken up, surely, when it dries” I thought,……and it did but only a bit.

Anyway it’s done, no longer the yellow and white pariah, the smallest shed is now, like her older siblings, part of the landscape.

I thought it turned out OK, I don’t pretend to be an artist but I can paint a shed.

I don’t paint on commission. My work is not for sale, and it can always be seen free of charge in my back yard.

Author: Low Wattage

Expat Welshman, educated (somewhat) in UK, left before it became fashionable to do so. Now a U.S. Citizen, and recent widower, playing with retirement and house remodeling, living in Delaware and rural Maryland (weekends). View all posts by Low Wattage