Rip Her To Shreds.

Well, deconstruction has begun in earnest - though the days are getting pretty hot now and it's best to work early in the morning and late in the evening. 29ºC yesterday and no shade to work in.

Most of the deck has been removed, exposing some pretty horrific wood below:


These pieces of mostly rotten plywood are what's left of the deck:


It's pretty obvious to me that this is not the original deck, and the repair work to the frames below it are rudimentary at best. None of the wood, even that which may be original, has been sealed or protected from water intrusion at all. A second, or maybe third repair job involved filling the volume under the deck with foam, which though it may keep the boat afloat if swamped, has also served to trap water in every below-deck compartment. At a guess, I'd say there was easily half a tonne of water in there, and I still haven't seen what's in the aft compartment. I think I will find out later today.

Ah, well, at least it's not my boat, but it will be a better boat when finished. And I'm not paying for it!

Also, it's an interesting insight into the quality of a "professionally" built production boat. I think I'll stick to building my own.

:)

A bit of TLC is needed...

To get this little (18 foot) ugly duckling looking like a swan!


Always up for a challenge!!

Seems a pity to paint it...

But that's what the customer wanted.



Someone's got a nice new gate.

:)

The internet...

Every now and then one comes across a real gem!!


Made me laugh!

Our town.

Just a quick post, to show the town we now live in:


Today is one year since I left London (the First Mate left about a week before me) and I thought it might be a good time to show where we are...

:)

Where they are.

The rooms, that is:


In these plans (drawn by the First Mate's architect uncle), pink and blue are the rooms in the previous post.

What is marked as kitchen is actually our existing bedroom, separated from living/dining by a passage (red) that travels in an inverted 'U' from bedroom 1 up and over kitchen, and down to double garage at the bottom right. It's a long way to walk around.

So, the next walls to come out are probably from kitchen through passage, to living/dining and some glass doors from the kitchen into the courtyard (green). After that, we'll be able to see from the courtyard right through the kitchen, living/dining areas and front terrace to the mountains beyond... :)

Double garage (as marked) is our present kitchen, and is large enough for two cars and a bike - way too big to be just a kitchen!!

More later, but for now we are going to be moving into the 'new' bedrooms in preparation for the dirty work in the new kitchen, to begin in a month or so.

:)

Changing rooms.

Work continues on the bedroom wing of the house, with the ours and the little 'un's future bedroom now ready to re-carpet.




The colour came out just a tad bolder than we anticipated from the swatch card, but hey, it's much better than the sickly yellow the whole interior was when we moved in!

No prizes for guessing which is whose...

;)

Jack...

...has moved into the house, he seems lonely and is very needy for affection.

D'dog on the other hand, is quiet and behaving like a child that has broken a toy, and won't be getting a new one. Which is about right...

Oscar, R.I.P.

Yes, we lost another cat yesterday. It seems cats and dogs don't always get on with each other. So now we are left with Jack, the oldest of the three mogs that came over with us, though we hardly ever see him as he pretty much lives in the boat.


He too will be missed.

:(

:(

Housebreaking!

No, not break-in - breaking, as in breaking down the house. The First Mate's uncle is an architect, and he has drawn plans for how this old ugly house should look. So, we've started. First, the main bedroom.

New door-frame in the passage, (old WC visible behind that, which will be broken down):


And a couple of pics showing how the bedroom looks at the moment:


The WC in the first pic is behind the big blue wall in the other two pics, above and below...


Much noise for the next week or so...

:(

:)