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The Malm bed is originally made to sit low to ground, like this: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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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!