Painting painting painting

OK so its been a while since I last posted anything but things have been happening. I have been trying to get lots of money from the bank which although agreed is taking forever. I had planned on taking a holiday and spending the money but with no money yet it has not been possible. So I have resorted to travelling down for the weekend and finishing off the painting.
This turned out to be slightly more epic than it should have been, after all I paid Mat to paint the chalet! Well that was a bit of a waste. Last weekend Rob and I painted all but a few square meters of the chalet and this weekend we did it again! So how did it take Mat a week to not paint the chalet even once!

We used a revolutionary new technique in house painting called "brush on a six foot stick" this allowed us to slap varnish on most everywhere. Even so we were at some points piling up blocks of insulation and furniture to reach some of the highest bits.
When I say slap on I do mean slap on. It is really hard to achieve an even finish when you are reaching up with a paintbrush at full extension trying to cover as much as possible without a) falling off what ever you are perched on and b) trying to avoid huge globs of varnish landing on you.

So by the end of last weekend we had clear varnished the place all over bar a small section on the front.

I came back this weekend to apply the second coat.
I was varnishing the house with a clear varnish that "retains the beauty of the wood" well thats fine and I was OK with the result but it was very bleached from its year in the sun and snow.
For the second coat I was in 2 minds as to what to use, whether to stick with the clear varnish that you cant see or go with a slight stain that you can. The clear varnish would have the problem of not knowing exactly what I had painted where as the coloured varnish meant I would have to paint the entire chalet or end up with a patchwork effect.

I went with the slight stain and am quite happy with the result.
This time we improved on the brush on a stick slightly by replacing the brush with a roller. The roller on a stick method is far more effective but cant get quite into all the nooks and crannies around the chalet and there are a lot of nooks and a lot or crannies!

The chalet certainly looks better for the couple of weekends it took to do it. All I need now is the lots of money from the bank and s long holiday to get some serious work done inside!