Spring update! - Bit long, sorry!

Edit: This turned out rather longer than expected - guess that's what you get for a month and a half of work! :)

Well, the last update was back in April, and we're now at the end of May - a lot's happened since then!

I've unexpectedly had a load of time off work, whilst still being paid at the same time - I've taken that opportunity to get some progress made on finishing the boat. It's more a case of the time/money equation now having more time than money in it! :)

So, a fair bit of progress has been made. I'm not going to belabour too much of it, or this update will be three pages long, but a quick run through with pictures... :)

First up, the saloon got a few coats of the terracotta paint - very latin I think... :)



The wardrobe gained a water-pump cover shelf, and a bit of finishing...



Next thing to see some paint was the service void cover - these central bits of ceiling cover the wiring runs down the boat - made out of reversed T+G. They're just too resinous on the back sides to oil up well - hence a coat of ivory satin...



A week or two has been spent on bedroom work, starting with sorting the under-bed storage. This uses wooden framing to support IKEA baskets for maximum clothes+tat storage! :)



The left hand end of the bed is actually in the bathroom - with a wrap-around wall, this forms towel storage shelves below the bed:



Amongst all this work, there was a bit of time out, the mutnut has been watching the progress with much interest - especially the height of the bed and how likely it is she'll manage to get on it!



...and a Blue String Pudding came round for a sunny BBQ and beers...



Moving on, the boat work went a little Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen with oil, paint and pictures!

Oil for the shelves, trim and ceiling:



Satin, gloss and some decadent red for the 'sinful' bedroom theme (!) :)



I also framed up these photos from my friend Pete who produced them for my birthday a while back - all of Lapworth:



One practical 'feature' was to install a wipe-clean surface under the bed. It's not as bad as it sounds, honest, the bath pump lives under there and on the other boat, the whole area gets generally damp and cold and manky. I used some vinyl tiles which're self-adhesive. They're quite easy to install when you get the hang of them. Not sure I'd like them in well-used areas but okay for here:



and here, on the towel shelf:



Carrying on with the LLB stuff, the headboard got covered and trimmed:



I'm quite pleased with how the above turned out - looks tidy and the blue goes with the red and black theme to come later on!

The first experiments with the Unika oil went quite well - doing the end shelf and the 'media unit' (!) :



The bedroom started its transition to a lovely deep red colour:



and gained some wallpaper too - not very traditional for a boat environment, but I thought it worth a go. This needs varnishing on the door for when it goes out in the rain! It's held on with spray adhesive which wasn't a complete success - might redo it with paste in the future!



Back into the saloon, a long standing job has been installing a few sockets along the wall - along with trimming them up too:



The above are hooked into one of the two radial circuits down the boat - one on each side...

I finally got around to sanding and oiling the sealing too - was a pain of a job which knackered my back for ages!



I'm quite chuffed with it though, it gives a decent satin shine. It could do with more than one coat, but I just can't face redoing it at the moment - maybe when it's trimmed!

I finally grouted the remaining stove tiles and around the trimming too - a job that's been on the list for ages :



Another easily avoidable job has been running the wiring from the service void to both a set of reading lights and all the speakers in the boat. The cables have been in place for about a year, but I've only just gotten around to sorting the actual things themselves. Been putting it off 'cause it's a pain taking the service void down on your own, and I had to get the cable rods out to poke them across...



...and the start of the speakers:



There are six inside the boat, and two outside. The latter two are waiting for the new deck boards and pin lockers to be made!

Another 'big' thing has been getting skirting boards installed - they're all done now more or less, but it started rather like this:



The bedroom skirting gained black gloss as a finish to go with the colour scheme!



...while the rest gained a lovely creamy gloss:



Much sewing came next, to create an covering curtain for the baskets, black lace drapes for around the bed, and a new set of crushed velvet curtains. The latter were put on hold when I failed miserably to get the sewing machine to behave with them.

She's an old girl though: :)



The effort led to the following:



...which does a good job of covering up the clothes storage and sort of goes with the black and red.

The lace drapes though, are just fantastic, darlings... ;) Kinky... ;)



Back onto more practical topics, some of the last of the tiling involved doing the upstand around the kitchen worksurfaces, hence hiding the very last of the exposed plywood in the boat! :)



More free-to-do and longstanding jobs have been the bath panel - finally hiding the underside of the 4' bath:



...and providing some panelling around the gas inlet pipe, while still leaving the joint accessible for future BSS exams:



The bathroom gained some silicone around the bath and the tiling, black and white where necessary... ;)



The bathroom even gained its own set of speakers - not quite matching the rest, but a similar idea. It'll need a small sub somewhere to improve the bass with all these satellites in...



The speakers are all routed to a switch which allows a choice of any or all of the rooms at the same time. It's a cheap bit of kit but manages the load on the amp to not drive it too hard!

It also allows, of course, for music in the bath, whilst not disturbing someone watching the TV or lying in bed! ;)



Another bit of a break was managed with a trip to Rickmansworth Festival, for some live music, food, beer and canal tug'o'war!





Sorry for the length of this update, last three pics here...!

So, final jobs to date, have been one small and two big!

First was fitting an experimental pump to empty the bath - it's a diesel transfer pump, and works okay once I remembered it doesn't self prime and needs to be under the bath itself...!



That was the minor one. The first major one has been buying and installing the loo - a Thetford C200! It was always an expensive one-off and has been on the back burner for ages and ages. Good to get it done, tiled and plumbed in - even if I'd forgotten it'd need a water feed and was on the wrong side of the boat! :)





The last big milestone has been today, with the delivery of some of the first 46mm hardwood trim, and putting the first bits of it up on the ceiling! So chuffed with how this is going to look - it really finishes things off!



Blimey, that was a long update!

Feels good to be getting things done though - I've ordered up a water pump gauge but more importantly a new engine control and new engine cables, so she might move under her own power again soon. I'm toying with the idea of spinning her around and bringing her up for the Lapworth Banter that's coming up - we'll see! 7 locks down to turn, and 14 back up to Lapworth, single handed!

Anyhoo, I'll try not to leave it so long next time!

PC

Bits and bobs - a tale of carpet and curtains

I had high hopes of getting painting and the like done today, but the day was just too lovely to be moving furniture and sanding stuff.

Me best friend, Ben, popped round to see how things'd been going - it's been a while since he's seen the boat. He was the chap who bought me a tonne of ballast for my birthday, and laid the floor... :) He also supplied the gorgeous solid-oak custom kitchen, in case you like the look of them... www.mpsbuilding.co.uk

Anyhoo, with the aid of some new curtain track, and a pair of spare curtains from the other boat, the last of the temporary window coverings are now gone. I'll swap the curtains out later on, when I can afford something more fancy.



Then the curtains go up:



The hold-back bar at the bottom was knocked up from some light hardwood d-profile, which I seem to have a fair bit of at the moment.



I may change the above for a more conventional brass rod or somesuch, later on.

My parents donated some spare carpet, to use on the back of the headboard, and the removable step sections:



A bit of trim and the skirting will tidy the edges of the above.

The headboard looks like this, with a bit of hardwood trim around the edge:



On the other side, I glued on the foam for the headboard itself, mostly to get it out of the way. This'll get some good quality fabric covering, stapled back in the gap at the edge, with some hardwood quadrant to trim it up...



Last thing to get done were the curtains on the other side of bedroom. Again, to be replaced at a later date with summat posher. :)



Maybe tomorrow I'll get around to some painting and shelves! :)

Sorry that wasn't more interesting!

PC

Update time again!

Aye, I know, it's been another month of no updates!

Hopefully, I'll manage to get a few more up from now on.

Looking back, last time I'd just finished putting some bamboo down in the bedroom, tiling the bathroom and finally getting that drawer done... :)

Since then, well, quite a few bits and bobs have got done. It's really into all those niggly jobs that've been on the lists for a while, that've been easily avoided but need doing at some point.

After that bedroom floor was laid, the bow step and bedroom cupboard needed creating. The bottom of the cupboard hides the water pump and filter, while the step hides (yet another) bilge pump and the feed from the main water tank.

The wardrobe fits into this gap 'ere like:



Used some spare MFC to create that side of it, for an instant finish, as well as framing it up in planed softwood:



Step construction looks a bit like this:



Which eventually became:



The OSB is in two step sections which can be lifted out to access the space underneath. It'll be carpetted and trimmed around the edges soon.

Along the way, some wiring in the bathroom managed to get finished.



Yeah, I know, a 13A socket in a bathroom eh? Not exactly what I'd get away with in a house, but quite useful for hairdriers, clippers and the like. It's part of the main corridor through the boat, and is fully RCD protected anyway. :)

The last month also saw the start of the painted wall panels - some colour appearing at last!



Nice and bright, perhaps a bit much so, but I'll see how it grows on me!

Another easily avoided task has been the cupboard to surround the electrical consumer units and inverter. It'll eventually have a shelf on the top, set at sofa height to make for a convenient place to put a mug of coffee (sorry, beer) down.



With some ply panelling, it became:



Not very exciting, but needed doing!

Another useful milestone was putting up the remaining IKEA blinds - they've been hanging around for a while, waiting for the fixing of the bendy wall panels to be fixed. We finally replaced the bent ones, pilot drilling them for brass pins into new battens to hold them straight.

Good to see them up though!



The next trip consisted of a set of easy 'low hanging fruit' targets! :)

We've decided to put off the construction of a fixed 'pullman' style dinette until the future shows whether we need the storage afforded by it or not. In the mean time, I treated us to a dining table and chairs to fill the gap:



Makes it look very much like home, I reckon!

Other easy 'just put it up' things included this splashback. Well, it's officially a noticeboard, but the etched glass should do the job... :)



The aforementioned electricity cupboard gained a beech blockboard lid, courtesy of some leftover worktop...



The blockboard will get waxed or oiled at some point soon and should look quite smart, I reckon...?

The other easy item to get done were the handles for the kitchen and bathroom cupboards, which again have been on the list for ages and ages...

The following are from IKEA again, and are simple but quite smart and easy to install.



Kate was busy undercoating the world...



(Using a decent 'trade' oil-based undercoat to protect the ply and sand back to a decent finish)

...and cleaning up after me!



I got on with creating a fold-down front for the under-oven space - should be useful for baking trays and the like. I'd fancied a drawer but it was vetoed on the basis of lost space from the drawer box...



The other main 'avoidable' task has been to create a framework of shelving around the TV and to hold the car radio that'll drive all the speakers in the boat (when they get fitted!)...

It started a bit like this, making it out of more leftover blockboard...



Moving on and using some dowels to extend it, got it to the following:



And finally, it became this!



There are some more shelves to add, but it's a good start. I'll box the cables in at some point and create a frame to hold the car radio in the top left 'square'. The bunch of speakers cables on the left will be shortened and routed to a speaker sharing switchbox which can sit on the top.

Not a huge amount more has been done, but I have had a good tidy up finally, moving all the leftover materials and tools to the house out of the way. It's created a bit more space at least, especially under the bed, which will gain some lino soon to provide a neat waterproof finish...



A shelf has appeared in the kitchen to the left of the oven - another long-standing task:



Last useful thing done has been to paint the bathroom - it's an interesting violet colour, which I guess goes quite well with the black tiles? :)



The boat's looking quite colourful now:



...and yes, I've given the kitchen a good clean, which has been long overdue!

Next steps, hmm, there's a lot on the list. Some tiling in the kitchen, lots more painting, under-bed storage, a bath pump, and huge amounts of trim! :)

I'll get there eventually!

PC