31st May 2014 – Some good friends are coming tomorrow. I have to clean the hold and make a safe entrance for the children. I can only start doing this after we finished cutting the holes for the remaining windows. I started working at 4 o’clock in the morning and left my ship by 11 o’clock in the evening.

During the cutting of the remaining windows, I had twice a fire. One was quickly extinguished, the second was only discovered after a few minutes, giving it enough time to set a cover and some wood afire. I had some extra cleaning to do. The original portholes from the back accommodation are back in place. Nicely cleaned and properly sealed, it looks good!

26th May 2014 – The hold needs cleaning. There is so much dust from cutting the windows. Sadly enough, my hoover let me down so I did most with a brush. later that evening, I continued removing the accommodation from that other barge. I still need a whole week to finish that job. Keeps me busy 😉

The more I think about reusing the wood, the more I start thinking I will no longer be able to reconstruct the walls. The longer I wait the more I will forget how it was assembled in the first place…

25th May 2014 – Every conversion I’m doing, I always have some wood left. it is a shame to throw it away. Wood is expensive. The front of the Watergeus was filled with wood from previous jobs or recovered from boats at the scrapyard. I moved half of it to the Aquarel where I will need it in the coming weeks.

24th May 2014 – A major step forward in the conversion of the Aquarel are mounting the windows. It was raining, the fittings for the gas bottle were wrong and I was tired from the day before when I cleaned the boat.

In the late evening, we managed to cut five holes to fit the windows. Once the holes were done, it was bright in the hold. Everything seemed much bigger. The downside of this operation is the damage of the sparks on my stuff. the hold is filled up with wood and furniture. This made it impossible to move everything. It is my fault to leave it like that, but there was no other solution. Don’t fill the hold up before the conversion is finished 😉

I had to use a tube of silicon to seal the windows properly. Since it was raining all day, I could test my windows for leaks straight away. Luckily there were none.

14th May 2014 – The weather hasn’t been good for some days now. This evening, there was a little sunshine and it was dry. People made remarks to me that I had a rusty old boat. What they didn’t know, it is new metal that needs to rust before you can paint it.

I painted the front shield of the den and the two new entrance hatches.

11th May 2014 – Another day of removing the paneling and the nice bits of wood from that back accommodation. While breaking it down carefully, you start seeing how the shipyard built it. It gives me some new ideas.

10th May 2014 – The engine is probably broken. There is no more compression and I didn’t manage to get her running. I have to come up with another plan. Will be continued….

The last hatch was finished in between periods of rain and dry weather. Most of my metal work is now done.

4th May 2014 – My neighbour has given me the chance to remove the back accommodation (interior wise) from his ship. It will be redone with current standards and insulation. I can reuse most of it, but it will take me some time to remove it.

It is a dark interior from the fifties. There are some nice elements, but even the total concept is nice in some ways. Happily I have some space aboard my ship since I last cleaned it.

For some reasons I always want to save old pieces like that. They are becoming unique and this one hasn’t been touched. It all stayed pretty much the same since it was built.

28th April 2014 – When I built the wall, I forgot to put my gutters for the power cables. I still slide them behind my wall, which I did today. It took some time, but now I can easily run my cables from one side tot the other on my boat.

26th April 2014 – One of the two hatches at the front deck is finished. The metal around it has been replaced as well.

25th April 2014 – Just working on the hatches at the front.

21st April 2014 – My wall is ready, my floor is finished and the cupboard is mounted. Exhausted, but happy. I started very early this morning to stick to the plan. At least, my hold is now looking a bit bigger again and I can start sorting out all my boxes. It is nice when you are working in a cleaner environment where you know where everything is stored. Now I’m wasting hours in finding the right stuff.

20th April 2014 – The last bit of floor, this was the plan for today. I had to remove some more old wood before I could start welding. I noticed the previous owner bolted wood though the ribs of the boat. This was the first of many delays for today.

By the end of the evening, the new supports for the floor were welded and some wooden beams bolted to those frames. I didn’t get as far as planned.