What did we do to get ready you ask. Well, we demolished the main salon and rebuilt it. I'll start with photos of before.
It worked, but it was very utilitarian. Chris's biggest complaint was that my stacks of books were always underfoot.
Day one was demolition. For anyone who has lived through a remodel, you know what were are up against here. Except, try and remodel your bathroom, with all the tools and supplies, while living in it. Everything went smoothly, until I pulled the panel concealing the dry stack overhead. In the mess that hit the floor was a vaguely familiar form. Then I realized the reason I quit remodeling houses was I had gotten tired of finding mummified rats, and here was one on our boat. Dammit!
Here was the end of the days work... (And I like the fact that the dumpster at the head of the dock is closer and cheaper than the transfer station in Seattle.)
On to the new installation. We wanted better space utilization, more bookshelves, a place to hide the TV and computer, and to make it look relatively period to the vessel. Fortunately, this called for plywood carcass cabinetry and varnished trim. The downside is that I'm working on a boat. I didn't have the tools to pattern panels with me, so every piece of plywood was measured, marked, scribed and cut several times. This means offering up a panel for fit, then taking it off the boat to cut. Then offer up the next edge, mark, remove and cut. And so on. And so on. After three days of this I had new carcass work in.
By this time, Chris had returned from a Zodiac cruise. One of the things I'd promised her when we sold the Seattle house was that she wouldn't have to live through another remodel, and now it appears that I failed on that promise. Fortunately, she grabbed brushes and paint and went to town. As I continued to plug away on trim and details, she painted. And painted. And painted. Remember, we'd also wooded the exterior of the galley house and sills. She had plenty to work on.
As we were coming down to the wire, each day would end with the meeting where we discussed the next day's work. Each day we would assess if we could finish in time to go to Victoria. Then the bilge pumps crapped out. Note that I said pumps, with a plural. At this point we were living in a boat that was slowing sinking. I prefered to think of it as "settling", but Chris was adamant in her use of the term "sink". So all work on the cabinetry stopped and work on pumps started. After a day and a half, I had a new high velocity pump in place and Chris had finished painting as stress relief.
While the pumps were being replaced, I did manage to install the new sidelight boards. Every time we go to a boat show I try to install one new "present" for Chris. Last year it was the new butterfly skylight in our stateroom. This year it was the new lightboards. Lightboards of ribbon African mahogany. I didn't get all the varnish coats I wanted (nor the gold-leaf build date), but the boards were in. More of out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new.
With trim and varnish, things were starting to look pretty good. I've still got plenty of detail work to keep up on, but we ended up with a presentable interior eight hours before we decided we could go to the Rendevous. We'd fueled up two days before departure, and finally decided it was time to go. Things were not as complete as I'd wanted, but acceptable. I'll end with the two "finish work" photos I have, and we'll pick the story up with the trip to Victoria and the Festival in the next post.
Oh, and all the work just exhausted Jack.
