Tag Archives: Galapagos

Cheap and Easy Boat Tricks: Covering Salon Cushions

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During our trip I was able to finish my project of covering the salon cushions and we couldn’t be more pleased. When we bought Galapagos the cushions were 1980’s hideous. Really, what must we have been thinking in that decade? They were some kind of mauve and blue misty nebulous looking fabric that made me cringe. In addition they were worn and torn and the foam had seen better days. Brief calculations for replacement ran into the 1000’s of dollars and we were spending that on baby Beta ‘Hiram’ and his personal nursery room, so there wasn’t much left over for what amounted to prettifying the interior.

Skippy is displeased with this upholstery.

Having little money has never stopped me before, so I took it as a challenge and carried on. When one is faced with a task like this, it is important to keep the specific goal in mind; the current goal, not necessarily the long term goal. In this case the goal was to update the interior to make it a pleasure to look at and use until such time as we could afford to replace the settee cushions altogether. In a word, the goal was HAPPINESS. I wanted to look down into the salon and feel happy.  Eventually we will do some minor remodeling in the salon anyhow. So for now, the happiness upgrade had to be enough.

Since the foam was fairly worn, I added a layer of 1″ cheap foam I got at Hobby Lobby. Cheap is the operative word here and it’s good that I didn’t spend much money. I’m not sure I would go that route again. But I cut the foam to add a layer to each bottom cushion and got started. It did add some comfort and that’s what I was going for.

First draft. A revision was definitely in order. This looked sloppy and the fit was too ‘casual’ for me.

Like many projects of this type, I never know how I’m going to do something until I get into it a bit. I started by trying to make easy slipcovers, thinking I would then be able to remove them for washing. After making a couple of these I decided I didn’t like the way they looked and wanted something more fitted. I didn’t care if I could remove it or not, because, again, the focused goal was an upgrade in looks and comfort for the short term. It needs to last a couple of years. I would use Scotchguard to protect the fabric. As usual, I was making it way too hard.

The old upholstery was built like a tank with three separate sections on the settee backs, each containing its own foam and each with its own zipper. It made me tired just to think of how I was going to keep the same tailored look without all the trouble. In addition, I had bought all of this fabric that the store had because I loved it that much, but it still amounted to less than what I believed I would need. I would have to cut corners to extend the fabric somehow.

The solution was so much easier than I suspected. I simply pinned the fabric tightly to the cushions and, by hand, stitched the fabric in place on the cushion, tucking the corners in neatly and stitching them down. I had the fabric positioned, pulled snug, and pinned before stitching so there were a lot of pins.  I used a large running stitch to sew the fabric to the seams in the settee backs, giving them a ‘folk art’ look that goes well with the fabric pattern. These seams were the hardest part. I ended up ordering some cheap upholstery needles from Amazon. The 12 inch needle did the trick and will serve nicely as a spear should we ever find we need one.cushionback

One of the money saving strategies I employed here was that I did not buy zippers or any other kind of sewing accouterments. Only thread and the deadly needle. In addition, since I added a layer of foam to each seat cushion, none of them are reversible,  removing the need to have fabric cover the back. This saved me fabric, time, and labor as I didn’t have to piece fabric to get the entire thing covered.

Here’s the cost breakdown:

Fabric: 20 yards 160$
Foam 40$
Thread 10$
Deadly needle 5$ for a package that included even larger needles.
Total cost: about 215$

Once I got the method down, the work went quickly and easily and I actually enjoyed sitting in the cockpit and stitching away. We’ll call this a win in the cheap boat tricks category. .

 

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The Monkey's Fist

Home is the Best Nest

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Has it really been two weeks since I posted anything here? If it’s been that long, it must be because we were sailing! Looking back it feels as though we crammed a full month’s worth of adventure into what was really a rather short 8 days and 460 miles. While we had one or two hiccups, overall the trip was fabulous and we found ourselves really falling for this boat that we’ve worked so hard on for the past few months. We were certainly not ready for the trip to end.

Mike checking out the rain. Can’t say enough good things about this cockpit and hard dodger with the canvas enclosure. We love it.

We waved goodbye to Astoria the morning of July 4, crossed the Columbia River Bar into the Pacific, and turned right.   We had our first overnight passage on the ocean and watched dozens of 4th of July fireworks displays from our position off the coast of Washington State. We anchored out every night starting in Neah Bay and by the time we had worked ourselves over to Bellingham, we had the routine down,  the communications signals worked out, and had begun to trust our anchor and chain to hold us tight. We sailed under ‘jib and jigger’ as well as under full sail and under genoa alone; discovering to our glee that Galapagos sails well even in light wind. What a gift. We discovered cockpit dancing as the sun goes down. We began to know our boat and how to live on her. She began to come alive to us.

Relaxing in the Strait of Juan de fuca. This was the best day ever.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the trip.

Sunset over Vancouver Island close to Victoria. Can you hear the music playing in the cockpit? Lucinda Williams, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.

Schooner Zodiac from Bellingham.

Mike and Andrew in the bay.

Hand made dinghy. A work of art.

Raising the main.

Crossing the strait under full sail in light wind. She may be heavy, but she’s light on her feet.

We’re working on several posts about this trip. Mike is working on some film footage he took, and I’m just processing what’s worth writing up and what isn’t.

After what looked like it would be a false start due to the height of our main mast/antennae combination and the height of the Murrey Morgan bridge (apparently our ketch rig has a taller main mast than most)  we are finally settled in a good slip in Tacoma at Foss Harbor where we moored Moonrise for 5 years. We’re so excited to have Galapagos close to home. We can close the curtain on Little Cunning Plan, Part 1: Buy a boat and bring her home.

Little gaff rig.

Little gaff rig.

 

Adventures in Cheap Boat Tricks

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This weekend was filled with doing all kinds of little things that make the boat  more livable and more like a boat that sails rather than a boat that sits at the dock; preparing to leave Astoria this week. Mike got the battens back in the main sail. We tried out the new sturdy stool I bought to keep by the mast for when we need a boost up. Mike checked the batteries and secured them stoutly. We got out the jack lines. We created our ‘safety kit’ area. We earned our Coast Guard Safety Inspection sticker and mounted it proudly on the mast. We bled the steering system one last time to be sure the fluid was correct.

All these things are good and necessary. But on our outing last week it occurred to us that we have been at the dock so long we’ve forgotten that if you want to go sailing you really want to do a little thing called DECLUTTERING the boat. Otherwise all kinds of interesting noises may come from the cabin as the wind fills the sails and the boat begins to dig her shoulder into the sea.  And all kinds of interesting opportunities for cleaning may be yours when you get back to the dock. In our excitement that we might actually get to sail this boat, we kind of forgot that everything needs to be stowed securely, not sitting out on the countertops. Enough said.

So this was the weekend for stowing and for completing a few of the little cheap boat tricks I’ve been up to.

Mike’s workshop was the worst offender in terms of being completely unprepared for sailing.

Ugh. What a mess.

Due to all the myriads of projects going on all the time, it is usually completely cluttered with bits and pieces of things, tools, cans of viscous liquids, and all the other assortments of items that, in general, make up the man cave.  Since buying the boat we have been too busy doing things like revamping the engine room to give much attention to going through and organizing all the stuff previous owners had left behind in the workshop. I had spent hours sorting and organizing screws and bolts and their ilk, but then got distracted when faced with that cabinet and whatever was lurking in the toolbox. We got to work clearing it all out, sorted things and Mike took a ton of stuff up to the car to toss later.

With the bench cleared off, I could finally remove the ugly and worn out work surface. This stuff was pretty old, and I have no idea what it was made of. But it came off in one piece.

The first cheap trick was replacing this with a softer vinyl surface that will dampen sound, be easy to clean, and also cheap to replace. At Hancock Fabric I bought some soft backed heavy vinyl for 5$ a yard in a shade of pale blue that matches the rest of the interior. Why should Mike’s man cave be the only ugly place on the boat? I bought enough to make a covering for the teak table in the salon so that we could use it as an extra work surface without damaging the wood. I cut a piece to fit Mike’s bench, using double sided carpet tape to seal the deal. I love that stuff because it keeps things in place but it isn’t permanent. The kind we have has the consistency of flat rubber cement. You can re-position and remove it without trouble. I used the scraps from this piece of vinyl to line the shelf in the cabinet. More sound deadening.

My second cheap decorating trick is happening in the aft head. Readers with good memories will recall that I recently had to strip off the old wallpaper in this cabin because I couldn’t stand it anymore, knowing there were old mold stains hiding back there.

Here’s a reminder of what we had to work with.

Like every boat owner I know, I get weary of having to pay ‘marine’ prices for stuff like paint. I see no reason why I should have to use marine paint for this surface. After scrubbing with bleach water and sanding the walls lightly,  I used a Zinsser product I had at home to prime the walls and seal them to prevent stains from showing. Then I went to Lowes and for 3$ was able to buy a 7.5 ounce sample of paint in the color of my choice. On boats, the surfaces are small so having to buy an entire quart or gallon of paint just doesn’t make sense. I love that Lowe’s offers this sample service.  I chose a color called ‘Sweet Mimosa’ and got started on that room today. Here’s what we have so far.

Yum! The color of sunshine, blue skies, and warm breezes.

I’m feeling so much better about this room that I’m going to add some additional colors to this wall to make the color richer, less flat. At 3$ for about a cup of paint, I can go crazy layering colors until I get the effect I want. This cabin is totally coming together with the colors in the aft cabin. I get excited about things like that. Really, I’m so easy to please.

So our third cheap trick is one I’m really happy with. Eventually we hope to find a way to remodel our aft cabin giving us a queen berth where we can both sleep as one. Until then, however, we’re enjoying it the way it is. Except that the mattress I was sleeping on had to go. It was old, worn out, and had mildew stains on the edge. I wanted a new mattress but good quality foam is very expensive, and then you have to cover it, adding time and labor to the process. There had to be a better way.

I measured the footprint of the berth and compared it to standard mattress sizes. I found that the ‘double’ I was sleeping on was actually only slightly wider than a standard twin XL mattress. (Why this berth would ever be considered a ‘double’ is beyond me.)  In terms of length, because the space isn’t square, it was shorter in only one area. Armed with this knowledge I turned to the source for all things that you want delivered in two days: Amazon. They may be the evil empire, but I was about to turn their evil to good.

I found a twin XL mattress that would come in a vacuum packed roll for $139.00.  It got excellent reviews, and a lot of them. Many people were using these in their RV’s. Add to cart. Then I knew I would want a memory foam topper because I am spoiled by our comfortable memory foam bed at home. I found one for $61.99. Add to cart. One click ordering. They make it so easy. Two days later…

Excitement in a tall box!

At the boat, Mike removed the mattress that had seen better days. I unrolled the vacuum packed mattress and it expanded quickly. The workmanship and materials are high quality, and it is made in the USA! Who knew? It fit like this:

You can see that one corner needs to be trimmed.  OOH, and there’s that fabric. See how it matches the aft head now? Scroll back up to that photo of the aft head… I’ll wait. Shiver!

With my trusty sewing scissors, I opened up the cover to reveal the foam inside. There were two layers of thick egg-crate-type foam, and a covering of batting and fabric.

Opening up the corner, preserving the covering and the welting.

Opening up the corner, preserving the covering and the welting. The trimming has begun.

Using a razor blade, I trimmed the foam back a bit at a time, fitting the mattress into place several times to be sure I didn’t trim off too much and got the right angle. I wanted a snug fit. When the foam was trimmed, I pulled the cover around the edge tightly and pinned it in place, flipped the mattress over, and sewed the cover in place along the bottom, using strong thread and a heavy needle.

Bottom of mattress with cover pulled tight around the edge and pinned.

A metal thimble is a must for this kind of sewing.

I then flipped it over again, trimmed the batting on the top to fit, and whip stitched the top to the side to prepare for the welting.

Whipping the top batting into place.

Finally I covered the seam with the welting and sewed that into place.

Start to finish took about 2 hours.

And now, it fits:

A perfect fit.

I am very pleased with the results. If you have priced custom marine mattresses, you’ll know that about 200$ doesn’t buy you much. This bed is quite firm, and I am happy to have bought the memory foam topper. In addition, because this is basically a twin mattress with the corned cut off, I will be able to use regular bedding. Because this mattress is mostly rectangular in a trapezoidal space, there is a gap between the mattress and the side of the boat at the head and on the side. My plan is to have colorful pillows that match the fabric I’m using in this space. It will make a lovely, comfortable area for lounging and sleeping. The best part is that this was dead easy. I won’t hesitate to do this kind of thing in the other cabins as needed.

My other project, the cushions in the salon, is coming right along. This is making a huge impact in that cabin and as a whole, we are feeling more and more like this is ‘our’ boat. Mike made the comment that when he came down into the salon, it felt like a different boat. I liken it to something finally coming alive.  We are keeping our fingers crossed that the gods are all pleased with us and that we will actually complete part one of this Little Cunning Plan by bringing Galapagos home next week.