Wood is on!

The end is in sight. Jeremy and Pete have managed to clad the end and waterside of the boat. It looks great, but it's still mint green. So now all we have to do is:
calk the windows, fill screw holes, install the final window (after painting it) and paint the whole boat blue!

Oh and trim out the inside. It'll give us things to do in the chilly winter evenings. (We have decided to leave the bathroom end of the boat for now.)

Insulated

We've finished insulating and battening the water side of the boat. And I've cleaned the side trim of the roof. It looks really neat. But the duck weed is still there, like another astroturf lawn on the wrong side of the boat.

Fixing a hole in the roof

When it's raining and the wind blows in a certain direction our hall floor gets really wet. The parquet has become to come up. And we think it's the little crack in the roof. So we've glassed over it today.

Polythene

It's hard enough to nail a twenty metre long sheet of polythene to the side of a boat when you have nothing to hold onto and can't see your feet, especially in the wind. Especially when your cat decides to come and help.

The garden party

In my mind the boat was going to be stunning for our family and friends on the day of the party, 2nd October. The weather was glorious, we spent hours tidying, but it still looked (and smelled) a bit like a building site.

The skip

8 cubic metres looked massive when the skip arrived. By 12 o'clock it was completely full. We just managed to squeeze in our old mattress at the last minute. Better go out and buy a new one now.

Fibre glassing

Thursday 29th September. We knew it had to be done. Three people, one pontoon and 20 metres of extreme fibre glassing. We couldn't start until around 3.30pm (partly because it was so hot) and we knew it would be a race against time. But we did it. Jeremy and Pete put on the top coat in near darkness and couldn't open their hands to put down the tools at the end of 4 hours of relentless rollering. We've got stcky grey knees...but the boat looks good.

New windows

The waterside windows are all in (except for the extra one that we're still waiting for). They look great, but are completely different to the old windows in every way. We have loads of patching up to do on the interior. We need to sort out blinds as well. The bathroom looks amaxingly light. We just need to check whether passers by can see us getting out of the shower from the other side of the canal!

Let there be light (in the bathroom)

We were very keen to put the bathroom window in today (weren't we Jeremy.)

This before and after shot shows that where before, the light always needed to be on (and Lola can't reach the switch yet)

After, it's great. And we can look out across the canal while we're having a shower! Need to get a blind sorted out...

Spider graveyard

The amount of spider residue is amazing on this side of the boat. While I have been staring at it these last few days, I have calculated that there are around 2 live spiders and 18 dead spiders, plus around 12 web/ egg bundle things per square foot.
This side of the boat is approximately 420 square feet. Think on that!

The screws are in

I kicked a box of screws in by mistake this morning. We managed to fish them out with the rake (my arm wasn't long enough). The water is much deeper than it looks. Unbelievably the little open topped box landed upright and we didn't lose one.

and Jeremy's in!

The pontoon 'capsized' apparently. It happened while no-one else was around.

By the time I got back from the vets (where Minky took his injection 'like a man' whatever that means!) Jeremy was fresh and clean and very smartly dressed.

Ring! ring!

Oh dear, I seem to have painted the front door to look like an old fashioned telephone box. Also, I've realised that my carefully chosen 'colour scheme' is actually the exact colour of Lola's Rainbows uniform!

Tiles are off!

Well we made a start on the canal side of the boat. And all the tiles were off in three hours. It looks so different. Working on the pontoon wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. And the weather is lovely!

There is more than one chance to skin the boat!

We have a time reprieve, 6 extra unexpected days to try to finish what we started. So first things first, let's take the kitchen window away!

That's all done now, good work Jeremy and Pete. Now we've just got to rip off the tiles, construct the skirt, fibre glass the...

Static houseboat

We have been very unlucky with the weather, every time we have tried to squeeze in a bit more work, it's rained. And rained.
This is what we have left to do:
Attach skirting to this side of the boat.
Painter's mate around windows
Paint top coat on tongue and groove
Paint window boxes
Clad window end
Prep another 15 sheets of tongue and groove with two coats of paint
Strip off tiles from canal side of boat
Make gunwale
Fibre glass gunwale
Sheet side with polythene
Batten
Add insulation
Clad
paint.....Maybe we will wait until the canal freezes again and then we can stand on the ice to do the work...

Colour

The lovely colour consultants at Johnson's Paint have kindly sent me some large colour swatches so I can work out what colour I really want the boat to be. I've chosen a blue that's the sort of equivalent of the green. It makes sense to me!
Meanwhile the door has been undercoated and we roped in our lovely friends and neighbours for one last push.

But our window of opportunity has now closed: we've run out of time to work on our boat, because the next canal boat in now underway...

The colour

We're feeling a bit confused about the colour. I have to admit that I love it in theory, but when I look at it on the boat, it makes me mad! Too minty. It doesn't make sense because we chose the colour so carefully, a dull grey green.

I tried an experiement for the door colour and I think red could really work well, but I just can't understand why the paint looks so different on the boat. And then tonight it occured to me that maybe the reflected green off the trees and foliage is making the colour appear much greener than it really is...We need to buy more paint anyway, it's just what colour...

Cladding begins

Today the first cladding boards went up. It went quite smoothly on the whole, quite tricky when cutting a whole window out of a single sheet, but otherwise fine. Except we've run out of cladding, need to route more sheets. But it keeps raining.

Silver boat

About half of the boat is now covered with the insulation board and it looks really neat. And quite cool, maybe we've chosen the wrong colour for the exterior...

Finally!

Jeremy fell in. Actually that's not true. He went in deliberately, had to stand in there to trim off the fibre glass along the apron. Lots of duck weed.

Gas powered nailing

Aran has been using his gas powered nail gun to attach the battons. It's quick and loud.

Another helper

More help from Margaret who has painted the kitchen door much more accurately than I ever would have.

And yet more help with childcare and food. Thanks!

Fitting a new window

We put the plywood box in first then screwed fixings onto the window and pushed it gently in place. It fits perfectly. Just a bit of patching up to do on the interior.
Whoops! That pontoon is a bit wobbly.

Removing a bay window

I only nipped out to drop the children off at my mum's (thanks mum!) and when I came back the end of the boat was missing!

Tongue and groove

We're really charging ahead on this bank holiday Sunday. Jeremy has made a jig for his fake tongue and groove boarding. This is on the right of the picture. He simply cramps it to a sheet of ply and routes the groove right in. His first test piece is on the left. It just needs sanding, undercoating, end grain sealing, and two coats of opaque wood coating.

Polythene

So the first layer is on. We had to wrap the boat (neatly!) in polythene to make a windproof barrier. This will be underneath the insulation layer so will prevent interstitial condensation. Wow!

More windows

We now have five new windows. Slightly smaller than the windows we took out, so they're a bit gappy.

Windows

And the second original window is out. Jeremy has boarded it up for now, so the boat looks even more scruffy than usual!

Apron

The apron is partially fibre glassed. It has to be done while kneeling on a platform standing in the shallow part of the canal. It took Jeremy nearly a whole day to do nearl yone full side. The other side of the boat is going to be very interesting, as everything will be so much more difficlut and done with an audience.

Hard work

It is an amazing place to work. And there's entertainment too.

Gunwale construction

Jeremy has decided to construct a plywood trim around the edge of the boat. This will be covered with fibre glass to ensure the boat is completely waterproof. (It isn't currently, we've just pumped about 50 gallons of water out from under the floor!)

One small window in, twelve to go

They got so much done today, took the first window out and put the new one in. It is quite a bit smaller, and the frames are quite thick, so it'll be interesting to see how it affects light in the boat.

Day three: Aran fell in

Oh no! Third day on the job and Aran fell in! I can't believe Jeremy rushed to pull him out instead of rushing for the camera!
And those trestles don't look very safe balanced like that in the canal...who's next..?

End of day two

The second day went well, only a fe interuptions, lots of painting got done, and the window boxes are ready to put in after another coat of paint.

The real work begins

Finally, the time has come for the real work to start. We got loads done today, and spent a fortune on paint.
Keep watching...

Another distraction

The beauty of having a boat made out of wood (and a carpenter for a husband) is that you can rearrange the walls on a whim. We're thinking of building an extra wall in the kitchen to create storage behind, and screen off the toilet so we don't have to watch the kids 'at work' while we're eating our lunch.

We really must get on with the exterior...

Another willing helper

Tina only popped round for a cup of tea, but she really got stuck in with those tiles!

Thanks Tina!

Lola's bed

We should have been concentrating on the exterior but it was just too tempting to make Lola's bedroom use the space better...

...and every child wants a secret door through to another room!

Canoeing lessons

In between tile stripping we just managed to squeeze in a quick canoeing lesson for the kids. Billy picked it up really quickly, Lola just needs to grow another foot taller.

Helper

Things haven't been moving very fast, so we got help from our friend Doctor Sinead. Ripping the tiles off is really hard on the hands.

Windows

We decided on timber framed double glazed windows from Jeld-Wen. Bought from the friendly guys at Selco (hello Glenn!) They came ready primed in a fetching shade of peach, not sure why. The windows are longer and narrower than our current ones, so there will be lots of holes to fill inside and outside the boat.