Lounging around

The kitchen is coming on nicely with all the major appliances in place and structurally pretty much there with some tidying to do:




I've managed to use wood from other areas of the boat and have, as yet, not had to buy any. This method is great for saving money and lessening wastage but takes more time with preparation of the wood.

An old picture of how the kitchen was placed before and a photo of the aftermath:


The new lounge is probably twice the length of the old one thanks to 'the void' relinquishing its grasp on about 10 feet of wasted space. Removing the second toilet was a whole days work due the lack of access to the metal toilet tank protruding though the floor.


I learnt that buying more expensive, stainless steel cutting disks were worth the money after destroying 5 cheaper ones. I'm surprised I have all my fingers...

Clare modelling the space we have to play with after a little more alteration:


We found some furniture via a charity called Emmaus, a tough love christian charity that helps needy folk get back on track through work and strict rules. One seat wouldn't fit through the door so I lost a whole day deconstructing it and rebuilding it. The table we had was also a little too big so I trimmed it down to a more manageable size.


Still there is so much to do with lots of finishing and painting required. At least we have somewhere to sit and eat in comfort.

Here's a picture of the boat festooned with piles of wood under the tarps:

Kitchening 2

It's been all go for the last couple of weeks with major work towards putting the structures into place that will make the final spaces that we will live in. The kitchen is the major one:



A strange, hairy man came to help...

Kitchening

Work has started on the rear of the boat. First up was sorting out the leaking calorifier (marine immersion heater that heats water with the engine or an electric heating element). Although not a serious problem I'm keen to have a dry hull - I'll sleep better at night. So the calorifier was removed revealing a fair amount of water but no corrosion once the grime was scraped back.



The hull was cleaned out and the rinsed out calorifier given a nice bed of insulation that will also catch any future leaks. On the left is the heating kit we've just got with lots of hot air ducting pipe that I need to install.


I also found some uninsulated metal, obvious with all the damp staining on the wood next to it. This was generously covered in insulation.


The hull around where I was going to build was also scraped out and dried, a job I'm doing as I go throughout the whole boat. The prepared area was then ready for some building:

The kitchen is going to be a galley type based on a boat we'd seen before, that we liked the look of. While I'm constructing the kitchen I'll keep the other as well so we can have a few comforts like cooked food.

Looking for that toasty feeling

Heating the boat jumped up the priority list a fair bit when we had a couple of cold mornings recently. There is no definitive way of heating a boat, on online forums there is no consensus as all boats are different as are the people that live on them.

The boat had a diesel burning water heater in the past with a few radiators down one side of the boat. Sadly this disappeared and I can only think it was sold - a similar unit costs nearly a grand - or it broke. So our options were open as to the heating plan.

In our opinion, after much research, wood is the greenest form of heat we could realistically implement on the boat. Thing is though they're not so great for cold mornings as they take a while to heat up. Also, in the summer we don't want the fire going and may want a quick warm up after a chilly night so another form of heat is needed. The most common are diesel burners which we're not a fan of but there is an option of using bio-diesel* with certain burners.
After much deliberation an air heater was best suited to our needs: quick to heat up, compatible with bio diesel products, and a drying heat to help get rid of condensation.

The rest of the heating will rely on a wood burner, which we have already. The problem is it points the wrong way and heats the arse end of the boat only. To heat the whole boat we'll need to turn it round with the surround pointing towards the rear of the boat to reflect heat in the right direction. To do this we're going to swap the kitchen with the lounge...

*Bio diesel from renewable sources, not produced by countries that chop down forests to produce it.

Drawers

Are a pain in the arse. Especially so when nothing lines up which not much does on the boat. Spirit level is out the window when the boat lists to the left a bit. Sooo, lots of trial and error, fuzzy logic, and swearing later...


There's a fair bit of storage now and I'll probably fit some temporary handles and leave the drawers as they are for the moment as we're not totally sure what the decor should look like yet. There is also the more pressing issue of Clare's desk and work area!

This should be a relatively simple task... Ha, of course it won't! Electricity will throw up a few problems as running multiple 240 volt appliances through an inverter will burn it (£900), plus the shower is next to the desk area so here's hoping it's sealed ok. Whatever 'das boot' throws at me it's all good as it's work on our own house - albeit a floating one with no space to swing a cat.

Also found a leak around the water filler fitting, which is dandy as I was wondering where the water staining was coming from! So, off it came:


Some brushing, treatment, painting, and silicone later a rust free, water tight water filler:


My days spent derusting the mini were good experience! I'll fit some screws in later but the silicone will do better than the lumps of rust it was held on with before.

Bedroom Builder

For the bed I've raised it up from the level it originally was to fit more storage space underneath. I'm also moving it all forward a bit as it narrows a lot at the head end.

The frame is a pretty sturdy construction with a space to the right as an inspection hatch to access the hull. A set of drawers will go in the middle. I've never built drawers before so it will be an interesting little task.


The top is done with ply. Half inch ply is reasonably insulative but I'll probably add a layer of thin insulation and a felt cover to protect the mattress.


For the head board I've made a rounded one that accommodates the lower back nicely when sat in bed. I've found some scrap foam which should cover it nicely and then Clare can find a nice fabric to go over it. With the free foam the headboard has cost nothing to build as all the wood came from Jewsons' scrap wood pile.

Destroyer of bedrooms

The bedroom put up a fight but conceded to my destructive ways. Nothing was left except a bare floor and a very large water tank.


The floor boards were all taken up to check for rust and water. Under roofing felt, that I removed as it was pointless, there was a fair bit of old rust but old and bone dry. This is great and wont need treating (on advice from a local boat builder). The main aim is stopping the source of any more water which for the bedroom was all the bare metal that someone had not bothered to insulate! I applied a great insulation called SuperQuilt. I've also cut some inspection hatches so I can check for dampness in the hull. Shouldn't happen now I've plastered insulation everywhere...


The need for a bed is heavy on my mind and must start building one!

Another pic of the boat.

Englandshire

We've been back a while now.

Clare is busy with her design work, so much so she hasn't had a chance to get her own business started. Quieter times ahead will allow her to forge ahead with her identity and how her business works.

I'm still treading water a little, trying to move away from Software related work.

One big difference to our lives is where we live.We had looked for flats and houses around Bristol and were surprised at how expensive they were so looked into alternatives. The result of our search was an idea of living on a narrowboat. During our search we had a near miss with a 45 ft boat that the seller pulled out on us when we asked for a survey, very dodgy! Finally we found a 55ft boat called 'Enki' (we're open to a new name and at the moment, 'Mayfly' from Rob is the favourite so far). We've got lots to do as it used to be a holiday boat and to make it a live on board for us it'll need a new bedroom, kitchen, living room, and a study thrown in too.

We picked up the boat on Friday the 11th Sept. The journey to the mooring was absolutely great with such a relaxed feeling of tranquility when pootling along the canals. Included in the journey were the Caen Hill locks, known as "The Flight", this is where Clare became a lock gate ninja as she wasn't keen to navigate in and out of the locks.

It took until Monday to get from Devizes to Keynsham with the last night spent at a pub mooring that explicitly said "No Overnight Mooring!", it felt like we were in NZ where we camped where we shouldn't quite a few times.

The mooring is in an excellent setting on the Avon river with a large field to one side and the water on the other. It's a World away from our house in Bristol - so peaceful. We have electricity and a water source, just need to get the broadband sorted and we'll be all set except for the large amount of work needed on the boat...

Work has already started on the conversion of the boat from pleasure cruiser to live aboard. First up is the bedroom - a good night's sleep is important to carry on the rest of the work that needs doing! Rust is a major problem and insulation needs to be everywhere - if there is any metal showing moisture will condensate on it and then you get a rusty boat.

I'll endevour to keep this blog updated as we do regret not logging more of our house restoration a few years ago.

Here's some photos: http://s1002.photobucket.com/albums/af149/claredev/

NZ Part 3

Seems we're into trilogy territory now! From here, if it's anything like a Hollywood product, it'll go downhill big time with unknown actors and poor story lines.

Well we have been kind enough to give you a rest from mammoth emails for some time. Mostly because we have temporarily hung up our travelling hats and settled in to do a bit of the w word... No I can't bring myself to say it.. WOR.. No I can't. Anyhow it's all going well and we are both gainfully employed and saving up more fun tokens for our next adventures, whatever they may be. We are living in Auckland at the moment, we have been here since August and enjoying it. The city's pretty cool and all the better now summer is here we can finally come out of hibernation :) I have bought an orange bike, yes bright orange obviously called Jaffa. I have been biking about dodging the traffic and troublesome pedestrians. Zac is working for a kayaking company and enjoying the outdoor life. We get free use of the kayaks too, all good.

I think last time I wrote we were in beautiful Wanaka dogsitting for crazy jack russells. Well sadly our good life had to come to an end and we packed our things into our new to us 2.3 kids and a dog people carrier or Nissan Serena who has been given the name frog being that it's green and a french girl sold it to us. We made our way to Dunedin on the east coast, and up to Picton to catch the ferry and from Wellington after a rest :) a quick sprint up the north island to Auckland. It took us a couple of weeks to find our current flat after staying in some less than salubrious accommodation. Our flat is pretty
smart - some might say swanky! We share it with 2 other couples, both kiwis so the accent is coming along nicely. I have 'heaps' of everything and it's all 'True' if you know any kiwis you'll know what I mean...

Last month my parents came to visit which was great. I joined them for their tour of the south island in a huge Maui camper van. My Dad did a great job of driving the equivalent of to the moon and back, up and down mountains and valleys. We saw penguins, seals, sea lions, plenty of birds and did I mention the Penguins! We were lucky enough to see blue and yellow eyed ones. They were brilliant. We ate some amazing food and took a shot at trying all the south island wines.

We have had as many camping trips as possible in the last few weeks now that the sun has come out to play. We have been up to the Bay of Islands again and visited some stunning beaches and gazed at the massive kauri trees. Last weekend we went to a marine reverve called goat island and thought it would be fun to go snorkelling. The water looked blue and tropical enough and for a moment we forgot that the Antarctic isn't too far away and took the plunge. Despite our 3 mm wetsuits and vigorous arm movement we only lasted 30 minutes before I couldn't feel my feet, face or snorkel. We did manage to see a lot of big snappers and other fish and a huge black ray. So it was worth the chill factor.. I think we may wait a month for the next sea adventure though.

Here are the photos of our latest happenings.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=ado8xj9y.5cft57ne&x=0&y=doat7t&localeid=en_US