Let’s Spray Paint the Deck Umbrella Fabric!

What?! Paint the deck umbrella??? Can that even be done? You might ask. Followed by ‘Why?!’ And I would totally understand those questions because I also had them. To answer the first two questions, Yes, I you can paint an umbrella! To answer the last question, Because the fabric was faded and I wasn’t ready to replace it.

To be honest, I hadn’t noticed the color fading until I bought new deck cushions to replace our 8 year old ones. Although it was faded, the material is in good shape and since I didn’t want to also buy a new umbrella, I decided to see what my options were to refresh this one. In the past, I’ve replaced the fabric on an old umbrella by sewing a new one. While that was a fun project, this time, I wanted a quicker fix….so, I did a little research to see what options I had to refresh the color.

Table Of Contents

Dye or paint?
Step 1: Clean the fabric
Step 2: Paint
Step 3: Enjoy!
Supplied Used
Instructions
Before & After
For your convenience
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Dye or paint?

While doing research, I ran across a few options. Dye the fabric, manually paint the fabric with a brush & roller, or spray paint the fabric. After reading that dyeing really didn’t work & manually painting can result in applying the paint too heavily, I settled on the spray paint technique. Now that I knew I would be painting, I it was time to choose a color. I found the perfect color; a nice, bright green from Rust-oleum: Green Apple!

Step 1: Clean the fabric

The first step is to clean the material. Most umbrellas are made so that the fabric can be removed from the structure. In my research, I read that some people remove the fabric and wash it in the washing machine. Others wash it intact without removing the fabric. They spray it with a hose, scrub it with soap and water then spray it off.

Since the umbrella wasn’t very dirty, I chose to leave the fabric on the structure, used a wet rag to wipe it down. This step was quick and easy. After the fabric was dry, it was time to paint.

Step 2: Paint

As I mentioned above, the fabric can be removed so I could have removed it from the frame to paint but thought it would be eaiser if it were still taut on the frame. Before painting, I removed the cap on the top of the umbrella. You can see how much the fabric had faded from the original color. After that, it was simply a matter of applying two coats of spray paint, allowing the first coat to dry about an hour. I lifted the edges of the top piece of fabric as I sprayed so the paint would cover the fabric under the edges. While waiting for the paint to dry, I applied a coat of flat black to the cap.

Step 3: Enjoy!

After the paint on the cap and fabric was dry, I attached the cap and set up the umbrella. In the pictures, you can see the spray paint lines. These are not visible in real life.

When the umbrella was in its spot on the deck, I noticed that you can see the lines of the spray paint from the underside of the fabric. While that doesn’t both us, if it bothers you, the fix would be to paint both sides of the fabric. If you have a paint sprayer, that would be an alternate way to apply the paint.

Painting the fabric helps provide more protection from the weather. It also makes it stiffer and gives it some weight. Personally, I like that the fabric is firmer. It feels like it’ll last many more years!

Supplied Used

2 cans of Rust-oleum Green Apple satin spray paint
Flat black Rust-oleum spray paint
Garden hose for water
Wet rag

Instructions

Clean umbrella fabric & allow to dry
Remove to cap & paint if desired
Apply 2 coats of spray paint to fabric
Attach top cap

Before & After

So, a couple of hours and two cans of spray paint and our umbrella looks fresh! We both love the new color!

For your convenience

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