Month: March 2015

Aquarel – Painting the bathroom

29th March 2015 – I will have some help next weekend. My parents are coming to paint the bathroom. When I look at the size of the room, 3 meters long and 1.5 meters wide, it looks small. Once you are in that room and you realize how much should be done…

Aquarel – Zwierbomen

23rd March 2015 – I don’t know the English word for it. In Dutch it is called zwierbomen or zwaaibomen. They are metal bars to the side of the ship. Skippers used them for getting to land where mooring their ship wasn’t an option. These bars had a hinch on the den or the deck over the hold.

I was looking for a set of zwaaibomen for some time, but couldn’t find any. A friend called me a few days ago he fond two sets in an old warehouse. They were cleaning out the building and I could buy them cheaply. It took us some time to get them out. I find my ship is fully packed with stuff, but that warehouse is a through nightmare… Four metal bars each of them 6.5m long, it wasn’t easy to transport them to the Watergeus. They will make it one day to the Aquarel, but not in the near future.

Aquarel – Mounting the bath

22nd March 2015 – My plan for the day: Putting the bath in the bathroom and finishing the walls around it. At the end of the evening, the bath was in place but no walls were build. Leveling a bath wasn’t that easy. Some parts of the bathroom were painted in white, but it still looks like a small area. I have to think on how to give it a bigger look and feel.

Covering an issue doesn’t help. It does not go away. On one of the small leaks I put a sheet of multiplex, so I wouldn’t see it anymore. Every time I looked at it, it distracted me. I had to move this sheet to continue with the second part of the bathroom and there it was again, a puddle of a greenish kind of product. When you look at it, it might be Anti-freeze or fresh oil. Another thing on my list is to clean the engine room. Maybe I discover the cause in the bilges of that area.

Aquarel – Electricity wire

21st March 2015 – Drilling more holes and pulling wires through. This was mainly what I have been doing today. I have two power sockets, two switches and two lights. I was surprised to see how many wires ran though that wall.

I added some more wood and gave it a good coat of paint.

Aquarel – Drilling holes

19th March 2015 – Time to think how to put the electricity. First drilling some holes in the wooden frame. I had to finish the t&g on one side before making the holes for the sockets and switches. All these little things cost a lot of time. The idea of working on electricity gives the project a more finished feeling. It is another step closer to finishing the conversion. I’ll be happy that I have decent sockets instead of the eleven extension cables at the moment.

Aquarel – Rebuilding the bathroom floor

17th March 2015 – I need to find a solution for the floor. This was the idea to start the evenings work on the Aquarel. Once the multiplex was bolted to the frame through the metal sheet, it still made to much noise when you stepped on it. The second issue was I had no decent frame for the inspection hatches. Between a design on paper and reality, there is much difference.

A few hours later, a lot of wood later and tired, but I had a descent floor. Solid, waterproof and good looking. Finishing is for tomorrow. I’ll do the corners with silicon and give the whole wooden construction a good coat of oil based paint.

Aquarel – Issues with he bathroom floor

16th March 2015 – Struggling to build the floor in the bathroom. It doesn’t go as planned. The metal sheet is not solid and with a sheet of multiplex, it barely feels any better. I need to think how to continue with the floor. So I started finishing one side of the wall with t&g. The idea of building a simple bathroom is taking much more time then planned.

Aquarel – Dry bilges today!

15th March 2015 – The bilge was dry so I decided to continue working on the wall between the living room and the bathroom. By the end of the afternoon, the frame was finished and the door mounted. I shot some t&G against the wall but was to tired to continue. A job for tomorrow.

Aquarel – Again water in the bilges

14th March 2015 – Knowing that I had a leak on the boat over a year ago, I’m always careful opening a part of my floor. Will it be dry or will there be a leak? During the removal of the first few sheets, the area for the bathroom was dry. The last sheet was barely open or I noticed a puddle of water in the bilges. For a few hours, I had enough of the boat and everything attached to it.

What should I do? I decided to go home and have another go tomorrow. I’m sure many people have more water in their bilges than what I have, but just the thought of having water coming in from below annoys me!

Aquarel – Building the bathroom

13th March 2015 – The next step is to build the bathroom. Last week I bought a small bath. The only way to enter the ship with a bath is through a big hatch. It takes over one hour to open the hatch and you need a hammer and a few chisels. While it was open, I changed the size of the bolts and the holes in the plate. it took me a few hours to adopt the hatch, but now it opens slightly better. It was also painted to prevent it from rusting.

Aquarel – Bathroom floor

11th March 2015 – Underneath the bath in the bathroom will be a metal frame at a certain height from the bottom. In case they ever need to weld, there is enough space to prevent fire and to make sure I don’t have to break down the bathroom.

The metal frame is an old door from the ‘coffee shop boat’.

Aquarel – Support for the boiler

5th March 2015 – Such a nice weather. I could do so many things, but I decided to clean the hold a bit more. While doing so, I started thinking on the boiler and the water pump. I build a wall to support the boiler. I’ll mount it Saturday when I’m finished painting that corner.

At the end of the evening, the conclusion was simple. I started with one job and finished another one. Maybe cleaning tomorrow?

Aquarel – Running out of materials

3rd March 2015 – Using up what is left. This is how I spent my evening aboard the Aquarel. I’m running out on screws, t&g and wooden beams.It is getting finished and the next job is to clear some tools out of the way. A job for tomorrow….