I decided to prime the shed first, since the cedar lap siding we reused is over 20 years old, and it would likely absorb a lot of paint. Rather than buy more primer, I took the greener approach and used paint I had left over from other projects...
After mixing all the small containers together, I had a color that was surprisingly close to the one that we ended up choosing for the top part of the shed. As anticipated, the cedar quickly dried and looked as if it had been barely painted in a number of spots - so I mixed up the large containers to a light color and applied a second coat. It took almost 3 gallons of mixed paint to get a good base, and I was happy to use stuff I was going to recycle anyway (and save $60).
The sun came out and dried the shed enough to allow me to put to put the final coat on the top. I sprayed this on using a paint crew plus sprayer. It worked great: it sprayed as much paint as I could handle, and was fairly simple to clean up. It is definitely worth using a sprayer - the set-up and clean-up are well worth not having to roll the paint on. We chose Sherwin-Williams Super Paint, which is their best exterior product. At $40 a gallon on sale, it's not cheap, but it is supposed to basically last forever.
The pictures above and below show the sage-green color on the upper area. Tomorrow I will spray a similar color on the lower area that is a couple of shades darker. Later this week, once all this is really dry, by DW and I will do the trim in a dark brown. She is way better at cutting-in trim than I am.
Finally, since I had the sprayer out, I put a base / primer coat on this bench. I originally built this to hold kids video game equipment, and it's being reincarnated into a seat for our walk-in closet. I sanded off years of grime, routed all the edges, and distressed it a bit. I think my DW will end up painting it black.
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