Extreme garage makeover

Surface repairs

Fill the voids After stripping the paint, there could be a lot of cracks and nail heads to fill. I used an exterior-grade acrylic spackling compound. A putty knife and patience are all the tools you'll need.

Smooth operator As a final step before painting, sanding is needed to smooth the putty. While a random-orbit sander is normally used for fine finishing, I used one here, spinning an 80-grit disc, to speed up the job. Put a feather edge on any patches of original paint that remain to make a smooth finish coat. It will also make your new finish last longer by preventing water from getting behind the paint easily.

Paint

Low tech The siding on this project was red cedar, so I used a quality oil-based primer to help resist resin bleeding through the final colour coat. When painting siding by hand, select a brush that matches the exposure of the siding. First paint the under edge of siding immediately above the piece you are working on. Then go back and cover the face of the one below. The siding really soaks up the primer, so don't be surprised if it seems to be taking a long time and a lot of primer to cover a wall.

High tech After your primer has dried, apply the cover coat. A brush alone will do fine, but adding an airless sprayer to your arsenal will have you racing along. The sprayer uses a pump to suck paint right from the can, with no need to thin a quality latex exterior house paint. The secret to spray finishes is to keep the spray gun moving parallel to the surface with the spray at 90˚ rather than swinging it in an arc. A very slight upward angle will coat the edge of the overlapping siding, but too much of a tilt will lead to uneven paint application.

Follow up with a quick back-brushing to even out the paint and ensure a good bond to the primer. With a brush size matched to the width of the siding, you can make a single, quick stroke on each board. The application of paint with a sprayer goes so quickly that maintaining a wet edge between sections is easy, so the finished coat will be smooth and even.