There’s nothing more satisfying than working on your garden until it looks in top condition. Unfortunately, all that hard work can quickly come undone when there’s an ugly old garden shed spoiling the view and ruining the natural feel of the space.
Here are some great tips on how you can easily disguise your shed and make it less noticeable. The solutions found here can vary in price range, so make sure you pick the right one for your budget.
How to hide a garden shed
If you want to camouflage, conceal, cover, hide, or disguise ugly garden shed, from ugly metal sheds to wooden ones, to those in small gardens, read on.
1. Disguise the shed with a trellis
A simple and cost-effective way to blend your shed into the garden landscape is by using trellising. Trellises are frameworks of wooden or metal bars that are used to support climbing plants like ivy, maypops, passion flowers, and star jasmines.
One of the best ready-made camouflage tactics will be a trellis with fake plants and leaves on – here’s one on Amazon.
In addition to adding a unique flair to the yard, they also function as ideal tools to keep sheds disguised and out of sight. You can paint trellises grey, black, or green. This helps to disguise garden sheds against a range of backgrounds.
2. Use fast growing plants to create a shield
The evergreen Leylandii is one of the fastest-growing privacy plants around, with growth of between 75 to 90cm in a year. That makes it the perfect plant to help disguise your garden shed.
This screening plant will continually grow if not cut back, so you need to give it your utmost care and attention if you don’t want it out of control.
But if you want to disguise an ugly garden shed, this is what you can plant next to it. You can buy them on Amazon and get started with your camouflaging project today.
If planting trees sounds too drastic or permanent, you could instead use potted plants as a shield to disguise the garden shed from view. There are hundreds of beautiful plants you can place around your shed to make it less noticeable.
They’re easy to move around and the largest ones are usually big enough to help block a garden shed from view – particularly in smaller gardens.
Handy Hint: For more ideas on what plants are best for privacy screening, check out this list of ideas.
3. Hang plants, fairy lights, windchimes, or decorations from the garden shed roof
You could also “pretty-up” the garden shed with hanging ornaments, wind chimes, and plants to help disguise and camouflage it.
There are lots of other plants and items you can use to disguise a shed as well.
Hanging flowerpots can work well, as do artificial ivy garlands, both of which can be found in your local garden stores or online. If you fancy making your shed less of an eyesore and don’t necessarily want to hide it completely, you could try sprucing it up with metal wall decorations – possibly even fairy lights.
There are some awesome metal wall decorations modeled on lizards, owls, fairies, and other creatures on Amazon.
If you’re creative you could even make your own decorations, or get your kids to help you make rustic welcome signs.
By combining these with fairy lights or hanging lanterns, you’ll turn your shed into something you’re no longer embarrassed to look at every time you step outside. Both at night and during the day.
4. Paint the shed a more natural color to help blend it in
Another way you can hide and disguise a garden shed is to blend it in by painting it a more natural color. Before I painted mine, it was a shade of dirty off-white that stuck out like a sore thumb in my yard of green plants and dark brown bushes.
When doing my research, I found that the best colors for blending sheds into a natural environment are black and white, green, red, and gray. However, you could even paint it with a woodland-type design and pattern as this blend in really well.
Handy Hint: Did you know that certain colours can be used to make your garden look bigger than it really is?
Alternatively you could paint the shed a whacky colour. That way it becomes a talking point and focus rather than being disguised and hidden away.
5. Avoid having a path leading towards the shed
Although having a path leading to the shed can be handy, it has the knock-on effect of constantly drawing your eye to where it’s located. Instead, it can be helpful to alter the path to lead somewhere more interesting, such as a garden pond, firepit, or wooden bench. This will look more natural and pleasing.
If this is too much work, you could always try making the path’s destination less noticeable by placing flowers, garden statues, birdbaths, and other interesting objects alongside it.
6. Disguise the garden shed by moving it
One of the best ways you can conceal a garden shed is to move it. Yes, hard work, but it can make the world of difference. Although I’ve not done this myself, one of my friends decided to relocate his shed to a different part of the garden after it began to get on his nerves.
According to him, placing the shed in an area of the garden that was out of sight of his window and seating area made all the difference. If you want to try this yourself, you might want to hire the services of a professional, as it can be quite a dangerous and backbreaking job.
Once this has been arranged, pick an area in your yard where the ground is suitable and surrounded by bushes, trees, and other dense foliage – this will ensure your shed is stable and properly hidden out of sight.
How do you refurbish a shed?
Hopefully, these tips have given you a good idea of how to disguise your shed. However, in this section, I’ll provide you with some extra information on how you can go about refurbishing your shed entirely.
Firstly, you’ll want to remove any items inside, and then look for any signs of damage or wear and tear both in and outside the structure. Some common signs of damage are leaks, rotting wood, small or large cracks in windows, and floorboards that are beginning to lift.
You can repair these by yourself or hire the services of a professional. I would go for the latter option as they may notice signs of damage, you’re unaware of. Often, shed-related repairs are relatively inexpensive, too.
After the repairs have been finished, you could benefit from adding thermal insulation to keep it warm and cozy throughout the year. I like to use my shed as a bit of a man cave during the winter months, so this is a no-brainer for me.
Finally, why not pay someone to add electricity? By doing this, you can turn your old garden shed into more than just a storage unit.
Once you’ve made your shed look amazing you will wonder why you ever wanted to hide your garden shed in the first place!
How do you paint a shed?
Before you start painting, make sure that you have purchased the correct paint for the job. In general, most shed paints and stains are weatherproof, which prevent the wood from being damaged by rain and other common backyard issues.
Standard indoor paints aren’t waterproof so make sure you avoid painting your shed with these by accident. If your shed was painted in the past, you’ll also want to strip this away using sandpaper or a chemical solvent.
I’ve already touched on what colors to use for the outside of the shed in my earlier tips but indoors is slightly different. Generally, neutral, or muted colors make indoor spaces feel more homely.
However, it’s better to use bright colors if your shed is solely a workshop or a place to store tools, as these will help you focus.
Conclusion
With a little ingenuity, you should be able to disguise and conceal the ugly shed in your garden. Of all the methods I’ve listed above, painting is always the best way. It can add some much-needed vibrancy to an otherwise dull space.
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Image in header via https://pixabay.com/photos/old-wooden-hut-garden-shed-romantic-456881/
