SHED BUILDING VIDEO 12 OF 15
How to Install LP SmartSide or T1-11 Shed Panels: Part 2
Installing LP SmartSide panels made easy! Follow our video tutorial for proper installation, alignment, nailing, and painting to create a stylish shed.
Taught by Henry Reinders, a professional builder, renovator and woodworker with more than 45 years of hands-on experience.
Popular Video Chapters
Select a topic to jump directly to that part of the video.
0:38 Position the first side-wall panel
Position the first side-wall panel from a verified corner and check its alignment before fastening.
1:56 Glue and fasten the lower panel edge
Apply adhesive along the supported lower framing and secure the panel edge using the method shown.
3:16 Correct bowed or warped panel edges
Henry shows how to pull a bowed or warped panel edge into alignment before final fastening.
4:47 Secure the panel tops to the studs
Fasten the panel tops into known stud locations while keeping the grooves vertical and consistent.
6:07 Fit the next panel and align the grooves
Fit the next sheet with the required joint treatment and align its grooves with the first panel.
8:06 Continue panels around wall openings
Continue around door or window openings while maintaining solid backing at every panel edge.
9:04 Use offcuts for the final sections
Use properly sized offcuts for the remaining wall sections to reduce waste and preserve support.
12:08 Prepare the siding for paint and trim
Henry explains how to inspect, seal and prepare the installed siding for paint and exterior trim.
WANT TO BUILD THIS SHED?
Complete Plans When You’re Ready
Use the video tutorials to help build the shed. Use the plans for exact dimensions, drawings, material lists, construction sequence and the included Excel costing sheet.
LP SmartSide Panel Installation: Part 2 Quick Reference
Finishing the siding comes down to overlap, nail spacing and a couple of corner tricks that keep trim laying flat.
Key specs at a glance
- Panel overlap shown: about 3/4 inch at joints. If using a different type of panel, confirm that siding manufacturer’s requirements
- Fastener spacing shown: about 12 inches vertically on studs when adhesive is used
- Adhesive: bonds siding to studs and plates for added rigidity and shear strength
- Warped panel fix: temporary blocks at the bottom, screws near the top – as shown in video
- Final corner panel: trimmed 1/8 to 1/4 inch short so corner trim lays flat
Common mistakes to avoid
- Skipping adhesive and relying on finish nails alone
- Spacing nails wider than 12 inches when adhesive is being used
- Forcing a warped panel into place without temporary blocking
- Overlapping panel joints less than 3/4 inch
PROJECT RESOURCES
Need a Budget? Price the Project Before You Build
Download the free Excel costing sheet to enter current local prices, provided for both shed plan sizes and both old and recent Excel formats (just in case you need the older file format).
Frequently Asked Questions
Questions are based on the topics covered in this video and common questions Henry receives from customers via email.
How far should LP SmartSide panels overlap?
LP SmartSide specifies an overlap of approximately 3/4 inch at the panel joint. Watch at 6:07
Why use adhesive as well as nails?
Adhesive bonds the siding to the studs and plates, increasing wall rigidity and providing extra adhesion that finish nails do not provide. Watch at 1:56
How far apart are the nails?
When construction adhesive is used as shown, we recommend approximately 12 inches between nails vertically on all studs. Watch at 4:47
How can a slightly warped panel be held in position?
Temporary blocks at the bottom and screws near the top (will be covered with trim later) can hold it while it is aligned and nailed. Watch at 3:16
Why cut the final side panel back from the corner?
Leaving it about 1/8″ to 1/4″ short prevents the panel edge from interfering with corner trim laying flat on LP Smart Panels on the adjoining wall. Watch at 9:04
Complete Video Transcript
Use the expandable transcript to read Henry’s instructions found in this video – with timestamps linked to each section in the video.
Open the complete video transcript
Welcome to CountryLifeProjects.com. I’m Henry Reinders. This is video 12 of 15 videos in our shed project. In this video, I’m going to be showing you how to finish off your LP Smart side panels on the side of your shed. It’s not very complicated, but there are some key things you need to know. So let’s get started with those. Now we have finished all our trim, all our soffit material. We have our SmartSide panels on the front of the shed and the back of the shed. The blocking has all been removed all the way around the perimeter of the roof, and at this point you can go ahead and do your roof or as we’re going to do, we’re going to
finish our SmartSide panels first. The weather’s pretty good, so we’re not too worried about rain. However, if you are concerned about the weather, either tarp off the roof or do the roof first. As long as you have your bracing still on the inside of your shed, you’ll be fine. But we’re going to go ahead and start these. There’s not really too much to it on this side here. I want to make a note that the piece that we cut off at the end is going to be used on the other side and we’re going to be starting the other side differently. Here though, with these panels, they are 48 and five eighths of an inch wide. So when you
go to center them, it’s going to seem kind of strange because the panel will actually come through this edge here. So I just want to show you that, okay, to make sure your SmartSide panels are centered properly. This line here is the part that’s exposed that needs to be centered on your stud. Really how that works out is that this edge here is almost on the outside of this stud. You’re pretty close there. And at the other side of the front corner, if you look here, you’ll see that this edge here, which is our lap edge, is flush with our other panel on the inside. So it’s right at the edge of our two by four wall. That’s how your panel should be positioned
And we’re going to go ahead and nail it in place in the same way that we did the front panels. We’re going to glue them. The material is not that thick, it’s not that strong. So you need the glue for the rigidness and stability of your shed and to make sure that it stays square. So we’re going to go ahead and what about a quarter inch bead on all our studs, top plate and bottom plate. This one here, you don’t have to worry about the glue bean to one side or the other. This is our joint stud because the panel covers pretty much all of the stud. I’m going to put a bead on the lower top plate
and carry on down right down to our joist header on the bottom. That helps tie the walls to the base. Got that done. Now you’ll notice there’s a bit of a curve on our panel here that can be a little bit problematic when you’re trying to set your panel on our base blocks here. And so I’m going to show you something. If you do have work panels, can only bring it over into place. Try not to smudge the blue, Put it on the ground, bring it over, get it on your blocks. Now here you can see on the bottom the panel wants to pop out, so just temporarily, once you have it
approximately in place, just take a couple blocks. These are the leftover ones we used on the roof. Screw those on there and the panel will not pop out anymore. Using short blocks, leaves your room to nail as well. And Now we’re going to bring our panel over. Just double check. Everything is fine. Okay, we’re in position here. We’re using two inch galvanized finishing nails. We’re going to start at the bottom. You don’t have to worry about denting the wood here. We’re going to have trim on thereafter. Work your way up the panel on this edge here, you want to be in about an inch and a half so you’re not nailing through the overlap plans here, but you’re nailing into the solid material.
And here our studs are 16 on center. Our grooves are 16 on center, so we know we can just use those as a guide. You can set these after and your nail spacing should be about 12 to 16 inches with the glue. 16 is probably fine. You’ll notice that I just nailed that completely on because I’m nailing through the flange, which gets covered later. And just keep going right to the top. Get it all secured. Make sure the tops nice and tight. It can be a little tricky nailing up here. Just nail to the studs. If you have to. You can screw the top in, but keep it about three quarters of an inch from the
top of the panel because otherwise the trim won’t cover it. So I’m going to finish securing that. I’ll show you how to do the next panel and we’ll continue from there. Our panel’s in place. It’s pretty much nailed off. We always start from the bottom because we have our blocks as a guide that we installed earlier, but as you get to the top, if your panel is warped, it’s difficult enough to be nailing in this area up here as it is. And if there’s a bit of a wow here, chances are your nails are going to pop or not going to be able to nail it on properly. So what I do in this situation is I just screw up no more than three quarters of an
inch down, go up on an angle because you want nail into that or screw into the top blade. And since we’re in the groove later on when we put our trim on here, it won’t interfere with the trim. It’ll sit nicely on the panels. I would recommend doing one in every groove. This needs to be fairly flat so that your trim sits on here quite nicely when we’re doing the final stages of the shed. So that’s about it for getting that secured up top. There’s one more thing I’ll be showing you, and that’s how we’re going to put our glue on here and do the next panel. So I’m going to finish screwing this off. Now
we start our second panel. This is already glued in behind here. We’re going to have to put a beta glue on top of here as well to make sure that the panels are all binding together. And it helps to ensure that when this is the lap joint here, that it doesn’t lift later on. The other thing they didn’t outline this clearly enough on the first sheet is these panels come up three quarters of an inch onto the first top plate here. So your glue you want to have on the lower part of this plate. So we’re going to do that. We’re going to finish up all these panels when you do your last panel, cut it about a
quarter inch back from the end so that you’re not protruding because that’ll interfere with your trim when we get to the final stages of the shed. So I’m going to finish this off now, get this joint glued up, get the rest of it glued up and finish up this side. Okay, we finished our last piece. You’ll see that we’re flush with the end of the wall two by four here. Now the piece that came off, which is this piece here is what we’re going to start the other side with. And we’re going to start from this end of the shed forward with this lip here being first on the first joist here on the other side.
So we’ll go to do that next. But for this side here, we’re all done. Okay, we finished our SmartSide panels on the other side. We’re going to do this side now. Now our spacing 16 inch centers is on both sides, is 16 inches front to back. And on the other side, our last piece, we have a 27 inch piece left over, which is what we’re going to use here. Now you do want to start at this end because the lip here is what’s going to be overlapped by the next piece. So this has to be your starting strip. Now the piece that came off the other side is perfect. It’s 27 inches wide. We got lots of material, but I do want to show you for measuring,
our center of our stud is here. The center of our groove that’s going to be showing is here, and you’ll see that the edge of the panel here is flush with the stud. So all you have to do just measure from this side of the stud to the outside of this two by four, we have 21 to three quarters. I’m going to go ahead and cut that. Remember when you’re measuring it, you’re measuring now from there, not the center of your groove. I’m going to get that cut. We’re going to go ahead and finish installing all our smart panels on this side, exactly the same procedure as the other side. Once we’re done with that, we’re going to get
the shed painted. Okay, we finished our smart side panels. We have two coats of finished paint on them. At this point here, you may decide that you want to go ahead and finish the roof, or you may want to finish the trim first and then do the roof. If you’re going to go trim first, you’ll need to put the door in. We have a video for that. And then you could watch our video on installing the trim. We’re going to do the roof next. The weather’s a little bit iffy, so we want to get that on there. So that’ll be our next video. But if you’re at this point, it’s up
to you which one you want to watch. All of ’em are available and we’ll see you in the roofing video.
Continue the Shed-Building Series
Follow the lessons in sequence so each completed stage is ready for the work that follows.