garden office - kermit

Guess the obscure link... Kermit or Kismet? Or actually, "It ain't easy being green..."
Dave hung the radiator during the week - he left the spirit level on it to prove it was straight, thereby showing we did have a little left to right drop on the main construction (damned pine tree roots). As we're going to need to get services out there at some point we did some preliminary work for laying the cables, involving the blue bendy pully things that drag cables through holes and tight little spaces, so now we have the armoured power cable laid in the roof space and ready to run out to the cabin, and the network cable ready for the same. I need to either put a wall box in or just add an ethenet plug to the inside end (preferred) and plug it in to the switch in our bedroom (which we've just upgraded to a gigabit one from a 100 mbps).

Pristine wall, ready for Jackie...

So, having considered spraying the outside of the cabin even though our spraygun probably wasn't up to the job (not being professional grade), we chickened out and decided to go the traditional route. I asked Dave to get a bigger brush for the outside (varnishing the inside last weekend was tedious) but he went one better and bought a 6-pack of rollers. I had modest plans to get the back wall done, having cleaned it yesterday with a scrubbing brush (rainsplash along the back wall was significant - not so much on the sides, but they still got a spruce up). As usual, getting around the back of the cabin with all the kit and gubbins was entertaining, but I got the bench set up with the big tin of stain, a roller and tray, and a brush for the fiddly bits.
Next bit was persuading the tarpaulin to stay out of the way up on the roof, which involved chucking some mini logs on it to hold it up.
I decided to start at the fence end, rather than drag myself along the painted sections as I went, so decanted some stain into the tray (after working out how to get the security clips off the tin) and set to. I forgot how much I liked rollers.
It was remarkable how quickly it went on, even considering having to stop and fill in all the horizontal joints and the sticky-outy end pieces with the brush (running the roller up the ends of the logs where they were cut across the grain was spectacularly satisfying as the wood seemed to suck it up). I did the back in 4 sections, stopping at each purlin to cut in the roof edges, fiddly bits and joints. Dave appeared with a cup of coffee as I was part way through section 3 and it was still pleasantly warm to drink after I finished the main sections of the back.
I had intended to stop there, but there was still a decent amount of stain in the tray, so I thought I'd carry on until I ran out. It was trickier on the side, simply because the tarpaulin at the front was still fixed, so I went up to a point where I could complete a whole log without having to unclamp, and squeezing alongside the tortoise run was pretty tight too.
So I'd used up what was in the tray and not quite finished the right hand side, so I went for a second glug into the tray and thought I'd do the front as well (having checked the 3 narrow vertical strips took the roller - they did, so either clever design from the folks at Dunster House or just plain luck).
I did the front up to the height of the door and window frames because any higher would require me going up and down on the bench, so technically, the front isn't finished, but the bits you can't see are well covered with the tarp.
I was starting to get cold and the stain was running low, so I finished off the cross pieces at the back where I'd started and left the whole of the left side, the top bits of the right side and the front above the doors to do, along with the underside of the roof at the front and the roof edges along the side. Not too much left to go, and you know what, it looks nice in green.

---

Hey presto, it's green!

Cross pieces were the fiddliest to paint - joints everywhere!

RH side done

'tis green!