Coleen and I were laughing as we flew home first class (via free upgrade). We'd spent several days in the lap of luxury, fancy hotels, cabs to everywhere, amazing restaurants... and were returning to our new boat home with a malfunctioning toilet and broken shower, far away from any hustle, bustle or noise. Still we were just as excited as we'd been about our trip to NYC. Yes, our new home needs a bit of work, but she has great potential. Nothing that a little elbow grease and a lot of bucks won't fix :-)
Since our return I've built shelves in Coleen's cabin (v-berth) which was no easy feat given the curve of the hull. They actually turned out really nice, but only because my supervisor (DJ) kept making me re-do things :-) I also built shelves in her closet (which we boaties call a locker). And to top it all off, I put pink felt fabric on the walls... yes it's a bit garish, but I did promise her that when we got a new boat she could have a pink walls - just like her room in our former house. Hey it's just glued on and we can change it easily when she gets older :-) I still need to replace the headliner - which will be white - no way was I making that pink!
Over the weekend we replaced the head with a fancy new Lavac toilet and all the plumbing too. That set me back a few bucks, but will be well worth it. Yesterday I replaced the shower sump, and finally had the first inside shower on our new boat!!! I still need to paint in the head and do something about replacing the sink counter top which is beyond ugly. I walked around in Home Depot Sunday, but came up short.
Best of all we are actually making plans to continue our journey! I should have all the boat projects completed and be ready to head to the Bahamas by end of January unless we run into some real budget buster in the re-fit! We still need to sort out the charging/electrical system, add two sails & replace the standing rigging, a bottom job complete with new thru hulls - and that's just the big stuff.... lucky for me I like boat projects..