By cannibalizing a piece of teak furniture, we ended up with 2 lovely teak trays, each about 16" by 26". One was adapted for the above need, here's a shot of it in the "up" position. It also folds down flat against the bulkhead. I think this came out great! Thanks Capt'n!
We purchased 2 mounting brackets, one for the cockpit and one for the settee. The bracket that go on the table itself is a swinging arm style of bracket. It is anodized aluminum with hard plastic sprockets which allow for an infinite variety of positions. I've shown 2 of them as seen below. You get the idea.
To move it up topsides, we release the lower handle sprocket and lift the assembly off of the wall plate. A similar wall plate is mounted in the cockpit.
By the way, the table can also be stored in place vertically rather than always horizontal to the floor.
The old stuff had been painted a dozen times yet always had a drab, somewhat dirty look about them.
We have constructed new doors for the galley locker, salon hanging locker and the locker in the head. They came out very well, with fairly moderate effort (I won't say it was easy, but not too bad).
At the local used boat parts place (in St. Augustine) we also found a piece of solid teak to use as our new drawer front in the galley. A router, some sandpaper and some teak shield will have it looking bristol in no time!
The one at the right is on the opposite side of the boat from the galley. It is the large hanging locker door that is under the chart table/nav station area.
Click -HERE- to see the results.
Here's one before/after eye-candy shot to tease you.
He looks like he's going to make me pay later, huh?
Stay tuned for other interior improvements.
Below is just another spot back by the galley that needs painting, We use a 1- part gloss polyurethane - which looks great and is washable when it gets grubby.
Limited teak is a good thing... I want to give up as little as possible of my very important snorkeling time on teak maintenance.
As the interior maven, as well as someone who loves "instant gratification", I have been cleaning, sanding and refinishing all the bits and pieces of teak trim. I'm using Teak Shield for the work and have been really pleased with the results. I used it in the galley over a year ago, and it still looks and feels beautiful.
Teak Shield is a clear product as opposed to Cetol which adds color. When the wood itself is in good shape - clean and well-sanded, a clear gloss finish is incredible. We do use Cetol above-decks though.
Click on the shots for a full-sized view.
To put our spin on it, we pulled out the 110-vt fixtures - they don't make sense to us since we aren't planning on spending much time in marinas, plus all the heat they generate. Instead we added several halogen "spot" lights: 2 in the salon, 1 at the nav station, and 2 up in the v-berth to give high intensity lighting where needed. These lights were standard track lights that the captain "transformed" for 12-vt use and then mounted on teak footings.
We replaced the old metal/plastic flourescent fixtures with teak-trimmed ceiling mounted combination lights from Alpenglow which offer high/low settings for both white flourescent and red light in the same fixture (to preserve night vision adaptation while on watch). These are nice and make the lighting in the cabin ideal for most circumstances - red is for romance, right?
We have 2 types on board. The teak and brass fan to the right is aesthetically pleasing and extra quiet so we use them in the v-berth. They are made by Chimera Creations out of Victoria, BC (tele. 250-888-9077). All we did was Teak Shield them to preserve the wood and keep them clean.
These only have 1 speed which is great for our sleeping quarters, however, we felt they were a bit underpowered for the salon, galley and engine room. For those areas, we used 2-speed Hella's, both in white and black.
We kept the blue sunbrela settee cushion bottoms, and used the geometric print for the settee cushion backs. I made matching bottoms but we won't use them until we get bored or the sunbrela ones wear out. The cranberry fabric was used for small throw pillows and curtains. The salon is pictured above in the first few shots, and I plan to add some other shots of below decks soon.
Finally, the perfect solution presented itself - these nifty plastic spice holders (came from Waccamaw's Home Place store). They come 2 strips of 4 each in a package for roughly $4.
The strips can be cut to the size you need. As you can see, I'm using 2 rows of 6, plus the 2 sets of 2 mounted up high.
Now they are hidden on the inside of the settee stowage access panel.
