10th July 2014 – The ceiling of the bedroom is finished. I’m now working on joining the old and new interior together without creating to much of a breakage in style. Since the new area is insulated, there is a difference in height. It makes the joint complex to make. It needs a lot of measuring and some creativity to get it right…
8th July 2014 – I started on the Aquarel straight after work. I could do a lot of work till it came dark. The frame for the ceiling is ready. One more evening and I hope the wood work will be finished for the bed.
7th July 2014 – I wonder how much time we spent in shops trying to find the right stuff. I was for about one hour in a shop finding silicone, a few pipe fittings, some screws, a bit of wires and sockets, some bolts and an air vent. It was late when I arrived and I still have no proper power in the original accommodation. I briefly did some wood work and went home.
5th July 2014 – It is a small area. One and a half meter long, four meters wide, but not easy to convert. The entrance to the hold from the old accommodation is taking much longer then expected. I want it to look in the same style as the original accommodation. The only visible difference will be the colour. The new wood is going to be painted. Anything above one meter from the ground will be white. Anything underneath are the panels from that spits barge.
28th June 2014 – Construction work today! Nobody seems to be sure whether it will rain or stay dry. I will not take the chance of painting the wheelhouse. Last year I had to remove the old sleeping accommodation. It was rotten, and there was a big risk of fire when we were welding near that bulkhead.
Last month, I put the portholes back and now I can redo the interior. There used to be two boxes for sleeping. One has become the entrance to the hold. The second one will be for sleeping again.
The first job was to protect the metal by painting it. It took me much longer then expected. It looks small, but the amount of paint I used was not in proportion to the area…
In the afternoon I made the wall between the entrance and the bed. I’m reusing the old furniture parts from the spits barge I salvaged earlier this month. Maybe I would have been quicker remaking it….
25th June 2014 – I continued sanding down the boat. Once everything was cleaned, I put a coat of paint on. Since I only had yellow paint left, she now looks like a duck. I will paint her with the right colour as soon as the weather permits me doing so.
24th June 2014 – I want my ship to look bit better. She needs a good coat of paint. I managed to remove eight or more layers of paint on two square meters of deck. It will take me a long way!
22nd June 2014 – The skylight for the old accommodation had been repaired. I mounted it on the deck, used some silicon to keep it in position. I must admit, those little elements give the boat a nice touch.
In the afternoon, I started preparations for the insulation and the walls I will make in the hold. I’m looking forward to have some areas ready and to get some structure in the hold.
4th June 2014 – Leaks! I knew there would be a leak somewhere in my windows. But all of them. Every window had one or two bolts that were leaking… I tightened the leaking bolts and those next to it. The rest of the evening was spent in cleaning the bilges.
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.