boat improvements

After a busy summer of having an insane amount of company (for a couple of months, we had someone visiting every weekend), Justin has gotten the itch to work on boat projects. I am feeling bad because my curtain project has come to a halt, but I hope to get going with it again this week and have them done soon.

When we first moved onto the boat, there were a couple pieces of wallpaper on the sides of the boat. I immediately tore them down, but that's as far as the project got. The wood underneath the paper was gross and flaky. Tonight, when I got home from work, Justin had sanded and restained this piece of wood, and it looks incredibly better.

Before:


After:


Also, we are attempting to get rid of the laminate look with the galley counter, the table, and everything else we can. Justin came up with the brilliant idea of turning the laminated boards (behind the watermelon as seen in the photo below)...

And sanding/staining the other side. They are currently drying, and look amazing. I'll update a photo of them when they're finished.



The other project with getting rid of lamination is that we ordered some tiles for the countertops, which should hopefully be coming in any day. Justin was so excited that we had ordered them, that he immediately ripped the laminate off the top boards in the galley...he spared me the actual countertop, so I'm still able to cook, but he's incredibly excited to get going and fix up the counters. They were his least favorite thing on the boat, I think.


This is what the tiles look like. Technically, it is "caribbean sea green" but they look awfully blue to me. Either way, I like how none of them are really the same color, and I like that they're from recycled materials.
The last thing I wanted to post about was the other large item we have on order...a pellet heater! This thing should keep us warm in the winter. One of our friends was able to get us a great deal on this, and in the end will be saving us a lot of money. A 40 lb bag of wood pellets is $5.00 and we should be able to make a bag last 1-2 weeks. We plan on supplementing our heat with electric heaters, and will only use the pellet heater when we're home, but it should be great.

The other plus side to this heater is that it actually will burn wood, coal, pellets and "other solids", so if there ends up being a low supply of pellets in our area, we'll be able to heat up with other things.


Hopefully, the winter will be nice and cozy and warm.

-Jenny