The New Cushions are Done!

Well after a long silent period I am happy to announce that I have finished the new salon cushions for the shit-boat.  I had been dreading starting on these because of the many yards of custom piping that were needed - over 2000 inches total (55.56 yards!).  However, I found a trick way of doing this really quickly and within a matter of hours had a pile of the stuff.

In case anyone wants to know how to do this.  here's a link to a video...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZUJknZ6aC0

I started this project around the first of August and finished it just yesterday (9/9/18) with a good week's break during the latter part of the month when RT and I help our friend Brent move his 40' sailboat up to Alameda, CA.  So all in all, it really didn't take too long and this included cutting the foam, fabric, and sewing it all up.  Here's the finished product....it's not going in the boat yet because there's still more dusty, dirty work to do in there.  The fabric is from DIYupholstery.com and it's called "Duratex" - very heavy duty stuff - stain, UV, and mildew resistant.  The color is "Caribbean Blue".  Sailrite.com has wonderful how-to videos for doing this sort of thing.

So before I started the cushions I spent the first several weeks of summer (110+ degrees here in Havasu) inside the boat, sanding, filling, priming and painting all the old dark laminate surfaces.  Some of the stuff had to be removed because it de-laminated.  So much fun with the hot summer - using a heat gun in a small enclosed space.  Yuck.  The "head" was the worst.  After removing the laminate and sanding, I found the plywood was wavy so then had to fill with Bondo.  Then sand.  Then fill more.  Then sand more.  I hate sanding Bondo, really, really hate it!  Safety equipment was a must....don't I look glamorous?  Love the respirator!

This spring we had purchased a window Air Conditioner from Home Depot and installed it in the front hatch so at least I could keep the temperature inside down to 84 degrees most days.

I don't think these photos do justice to how much better Shit-boat looks inside now with the new paint, but here you go....

 I've decided to re-use the original cabinet doors, just re-laminate them with a speckled-gray Formica ("Crystal Flint Etchings") with new pulls and hinges.  I will also need to fabricate a few new cabinet doors for some that are missing.  We found a site that sells "t-molding" which is what was used for trimming out the doors, T-molding.com, of course!

Well, gotta get back to work.  This morning I'm patterning for the aft-berth mattress.  The 6" memory foam mattress is laying in our front room waiting to be cut.