My sister has started to paint the outside doors and windows of her
newish (4 years old) house. The windows and doors are thick
(scandanavian style) pine made by Rationel. The location is southern
Ireland (Cork), south facing. In the summer it gets very hot sun.

The timber looks like it was originally stained. She has started
work, and has one coat of varnish on some of the windows and 2 doors.
She spoke to me after getting this far and I have put some doubt in
her mind as to whether varnish is the best coating to use. My
recommendation is that she should use a stain of some type (Sadolin is
the brand name that I normally use). The problem is that she already
has one coat of varnish on the timber.

Should she continue down the varnish route and put on another coat or
two, or strart from scratch, strip off the varnish and go for a
woodstain.

Any recommendations from the experts ???


Thanks

Frank