Tile in a boat...and moving aboard!

"The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure."

~Joseph Campbell

"If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try."

~Seth Godin

Well, I've committed to moving aboard now.  I gave notice of 30 days to my landlord yesterday--April 1--no fooling!  I've been a bit nervous about this, which, ironically, is exactly why I decided I HAD to do it.

She's not 100% ready (and I'm not sure I am)...but here we go!

She is really close to ready, though.  The head has been tiled!  There are a few small places we still need to tile, but the majority of the work is finished.  This was a learning experience, and I am VERY thankful for the help I received!  Don Atwood and Melanie Walls helped get the tile installed, and Mees Distributors helped answer questions about products to use in a boat.

Before tiling, I started doing some searching online--trying to determine what others had learned through tiling their boats.  I was worried that the flexing of a boat would crack the tile and/or grout.  I found this conversation in the CruisersForum.  Important learnings from this: the adhesive and the grout both need to be flexible.

The tile that I chose is Icelandic Pencil by Jeffrey Court (available at Home Depot):

The tile is a mosaic with both marble and glass pieces.

The adhesive we used is Super Flex Latex Modified Mortar (more information can be found here):

We also needed flexible grout.  Mees Distributors was very helpful in selecting one.  I chose Bostik QuartzLock in the color birch:

Before adding the grout, we sealed each of the marble tiles so that the color would not change. 

I am amazed that many think tiling is a DIY project--especially on a boat!  It requires the correct tools, precision cuts and ingenuity to get the job done well.

Without the proper tools and experience, I would not have wanted to take this on.  Don Atwood (Atwood Remodeling) was very generous with his time and patience in helping me with this project.  I do not hesitate to recommend him to you for your tiling or renovation needs (513.378.2671).  I can't express how grateful I am for his help!  And it looks fabulous!

The windows provided a extra challenge!  They are parallelograms, not rectangles, and the edges were rough:

To give the edges a smooth, clean finish, we used an aluminum Schluter Strip (available at Home Depot in lots of colors):

In this pic, you can see Don Atwood placing the Schluter strip around the bottom edge of the window.

And here is the clean finished edge with the strip in place.

Here are some more pics of the head:

This pic shows the high cabinet and the sink cabinet (from IKEA--Godmorgon series in high gloss gray).  The wall above the sink cabinet will have a medicine cabinet.  Once it is installed, we will tile around it:

The shower wall is not completely installed yet.  When it is finished, we will tile the ~5 inch band around the top, as well.  You can see the wall cabinet (another Godmorgon piece from Ikea).

I love the way it is all coming together.  Several people have commented that I did not choose orange tile.  The sink will be orange...

But, I did find this tile (Interstyle Barcode Tile), and I would love to figure out a way to incorporate it:

Any suggestions?...

The head is almost finished.  The good news is that the marina has a bathroom with showers...this may come in handy, because I have committed to my adventure!  Ready or not....scared or not...I am moving aboard!

A Boat, a Bar and a Bed. (And time for fun)

"The trouble is, you think you have time."

~Buddha

Time.  It was almost a year ago that I signed the contract to purchase my boat.  I remember the timeline I had in mind then.  I planned to be finished in 3-4 months.  [insert amused giggle here]

This timeline created quite a bit of stress.  I also remember when I decided to do away with the timeline.  It was liberating.

Even without the timeline, I still spent most of my spare time working on her.  This also took its toll.  One defining philosophy that I hold is that fun is one of the most important things in life.  If you allow yourself to get so caught up in your goals and results (almost dogmatic about progress) that you forget that life is right now, you enter dangerous territory.  And I was in too deep to even recognize it.  But life (the universe, Ganesh, god...) has a way of bringing you back to you--reminding you of the life lessons you might occasionally forget.

So much has happened in the past year, and now, she is starting to look like a cozy boat home.  And I am making preparations to move aboard.

The bar is in place and ready for friends, food, drink, laughter, good times and memories:

It was Glenn Tepe's idea to put the mahogany colored wood trim all around the edge.  This ties in the color scheme of the ceiling while also providing the ridge typical of boat counters (to keep things from sliding right off).  I think it was the perfect finishing touch!  I can't wait to put the bar stools in place!

The bed is ready for a mattress:

This bed is a Malm bed, made by Ikea (and changed quite a bit).

The Malm bed is originally made to sit low to ground, like this:

I needed the foot board to sit up on my engine box, so I needed to lift the bed.  This would also allow me to add storage underneath, as well.  

To do that, we had to drill new holes for the hardware.  The diagram below shows the head board and foot board of the bed.  The blue arrows show where the hardware was originally meant to be placed, and the orange arrows show where we needed it:

When we did this, we realized that the head board is mostly hollow and it is reinforced where the hardware is attached.

We ended up just putting a piece of 3/4 inch plywood about 4 inches wide on the head board right under where the hardware was relocated (between the two red arrows):

In the picture above, you can also see how I will be able to add storage underneath the bed.  Ikea has two-drawer chests that fit just perfectly under the bed at its new height.  I will be able to get 4 of them under there!

Some more progress pics:

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Next on the list is to finish the bathroom and the settee.

For now, I am enjoying each moment I spend on the boat--because there are no guarantees of any time in the future!

Continual Progress!

"Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement and success have no meaning."

~Benjamin Franklin

There has been so much progress lately.  Exactly 2 weeks ago today someone visited my boat and said (in reference to my April move-aboard goal): "it's not going to be ready."  I asked why, and he pointed out how much work needed done.

Then, in walked Gregg and Glenn Tepe.  I am so grateful for their contributions in the progress of my project!

Let's just look at some before & after pics:

Before...

Before (another angle)...

And now!

Oh...and let's not forget how she looked between then and now.

Before.

After.

Before

And now...

Soon I will share pics of the bathroom and some other areas of the boat.  The progress is continual, and I am so thrilled by our achievement so far!

Almost finished...maybe? Trim (choosing & staining, etc.).

"To finish a work?...What nonsense!  To finish it means to be through with it, to kill it, to rid it of its soul, to give it its final blow the coup de grace for the painter as well as the picture."

~Pablo Picasso

An interesting piece of information for you:  they make birch paneling...but not birch trim.  So, this creates a bit of a challenge when you are ready to trim the area where you installed birch panel.  Thus began my search for trim.

Being new to wood and its properties, this was quite a learning experience for me.  I like to claim that I am a carpenter now (though I realize I am VERY far from it).  I do enjoy understanding a little about the grain of different woods, how they take stain and polyurethane differently, etc.  Who knew that woods were so varied and dramatically different from each other?!

So, I started my trim experiment with some pine.  In my ignorance, I thought: "it's light-colored, the grain is minimal...if I polyurethane it, it may turn the same golden color as the birch walls":

 The pine is clearly too light.

Next, I tried oak:

I didn't like this at all!  Way too grainy.

So, when it's difficult to match something, go for a contrasting color, right?  I wondered what it would look like if my trim followed the same theme as the ceiling - birch with mahogany:

This isn't horrible...kind of nice, actually.  But I was worried about how it would look if every corner and seam was mahogany.  I thought it would be too busy.

I wondered how poplar would look.  It's light.  Maybe it would deepen in color with polyurethane:

 Still, too light.  And, though you can't tell in this pic, it was also too green (in color).  Poplar has green tones (see, I told you I was a carpenter now).

I decided to go to Home Depot and ask for help.  I visited the Home Depot in Pleasant Ridge.  Lauren Byrd works in the paint department and she offered to help.  I explained what I was looking for, and she showed me a piece of wood that had sections stained in many different shades.  If you need some help with stains and matching colors, grab a sample and visit Lauren at Home Depot (tell her I said hi)!

I was very surprised to find that cherry was the closest shade.  When I think of cherry, I picture tones of red or maroon.  So, (being one of little faith), I bought the smallest container available to test it:

A great match!  I was very relieved to find something that would work--pine trim with Minwax cherry stain:

Now to stain and polyurethane trim for the boat!  Gregg Tepe helped me measure all of the inside and outside corners of the walls (where I would use pine with cherry stain), and the ceiling (where I would use mahogany to match he coffers on the salon ceiling).

Buying trim is a time-consuming task.  I had to inspect each piece to determine if was straight, free of nicks, the color I wanted, etc.  It took hours.

Once I purchased it, I had to get it home.  I tried to keep the pieces as long as I could (forgetting about getting them into my Jeep Wrangler).  Well, if they won't fit inside, carry them on the outside (this was Gregg's idea, and it saved the day):

I imagined this would be a tedious job--staining and polyurethaning (is that a verb?) lots of pieces of trim.  But actually, I loved it!  I took a day off work and set up my work area on the boat.  It was a dreary, rainy day.  But, spending the day in the warmth of my boat with music playing and rain dancing on the metal rooftop while I sanded and brushed and wiped each piece of trim--watching it magically change to a golden hue--was very relaxing and satisfying.

One handy tip: Mirka scuff pads make it easy to hold and get every detailed cut of the trim when sanding:

And the polyurethane:

The trim for the ceiling in the back of the boat was easier.  Since the coffers in the salon were made of poplar wood with mahogany stain, I just had to choose a trim made of poplar and use the same stain.

I chose this trim (found it at Hyde Park Lumber):

Once again, I set up my work station on the boat and thoroughly enjoyed the task:

Staining...

And finished (in the middle of the night):

Oh!  Remember that I mentioned the green color of poplar?  Look at this:

And, this is how birch changes with just polyurethane:

The section on the left has one coat of polyurethane, and the one on the right has none.

I had lots of things to polyurethane, so I was so thankful my friends, Gregg Tepe and Mary Hodge, came to help:

Well, they did occasionally fill my wine glass...

Tomorrow Glenn will install the trim.  I can't wait to see what a difference it will make--the "finishing touch."  OK, I don't think this project will ever be finished, and I'm ok with that.  I'm more than ok with that.  I hope it is always a project...always progressing and changing...always a passion.  I hope to never be through with it.