Boat projects
are almost a constant when you own a boat. (Cabin)
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| Cabin photo |
Owning an older
boat mostly built out of wood (instead of gelcoat) means we can do a fair bit
of the work ourselves. We made sure we had the proper tools and I think
it made all the difference in the results. Mind you, we are not
professionals, but we are very happy with the end results so far. Because of
our planned extended trip, we've decided to action and do most of our projects
sooner, rather than later. Here a few of the cabin/inside projects.
The Galley:
One of the
projects that I wanted us to do was change/fix the counter top in the
galley. I naively thought it would be easy to address this - boy, was I
wrong. To remove the counter top, Papi ended up removing/gutting pretty
much the whole galley. All that was left standing after were the divider
panels (they are held in place with fiberglass to the side of the hull).
With the counter top removed, we now had a clean slate to work with, a
"carte blanche".
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| Galley - before |
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| Galley - during |
The refrigerator
was original from when the boat was built, in 1977, and was quite noisy.
We hadn't planned or changing it this year, but with everything removed - we
decided that now was a good time to do it as the odds of finding another fridge
with the same dimensions are pretty slim. And we are very pleased with the
fridge we got, a NovaCool 3100. And as you can guess, the dimensions where not
the same.
With the new fridge in place, the cabinet facade
redone, the new counter top installed (white maple), we needed to install a new
sink and faucet (also not planned - but a consequence of changing the counter
top). I now have a bigger sink than before - so I am very happy about that!
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| Galley - Done |
With the new
facade stained and varnished, we decided to keep the old cabinet door and
drawers. Papi sanded them so that
I had a fresh surface to re-varnish. The end results are pretty good.
Bed:
The bed/sleeping
area was comprised of four cushions. It was not very comfortable and it's the
very first thing we changed last fall. We replaced the cushions with a
new foam mattress. The mattress came with a removable cover, so using the
old cushions for my pattern, we cut the mattress to fit into the v-bearth. I
fixed/modified the mattress cover this spring so we have a nice and comfy bed
now (a priority as a good sleep is really important if we don't want to be
"cranky faced"). The only down side to having a real mattress is that
now, the access to the storage compartments under are not as easily accessible.
It's a compromise we are willing to make.
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| old cushions and bedding |
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| new memory foam mattress |
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| A real bed/mattress |
Storage
(clothing cabinets):
The
configurations of the cabin did not include any dresser/cabinets for clothing.
(There is one thin closet but that is where the Prosine Inverter is installed.)
We do have a ledge along the v-bearth where we put baskets to hold our cloths,
but we needed a bit more (for our extended trip).
Originally, the
v-bearth was also part of the seating area for dining (a bit of a "U"
shape), but with our new foam mattress, we now had room for small cabinets/shelves.
Papi built really nice units and they fit perfectly. I miscalculated the
spacing for my shelves a bit, so we removed one. I have two
spaces/shelves and Papi has three, but everything fits so far.
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| Built as per our specs |
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| Stained and installed |
Organisation:
I am trying to maximize what space we have, and
so far everything seems to have a spot. I am not confident everything is in
it's best spot, and I am sure I will reorganize the cabin as we live in it and
see what we use regularly and how we can improve the flow.
We've completed much more than these projects, I will be posting something on those soon.
Tina & Papi
"In life, it's not where you go, it's who you travel with"
– Charles Schultz
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