Klobo

We took a road trip to Ikea in Stoughton, Mass. in search of a particular sofa that was out of stock at Ikea's New Haven store. We found what we wanted almost immediately but being the careful shopper that Frances is, we continued to look and measure. We knew exactly how much room we had to work with and when we measured the sofa that we had intended to buy, it seems too wide, meaning that it would stick out further from the salon wall than we wanted.

Then we saw Klobo, a loveseat that looked perfect, something that was was considerably less expensive than our original choice and would fit. We then did the warehouse pickup routine and before long Klobo was in the back of our station wagon on its way to its new home on Act Three.

We should mention, just in case you've never been to Ikea, that everything is named for its manufacturer. In this case, the loveseat was made by Klobo, which could well mean "Acme" or "Goldfarb" in Swedish, for all we know. However, our cartoon minds immediately latched onto the name.

"Captain Kirk, there's a Klobo entering our force field at mach 21!"

Here it is, in our salon. Time to assemble: 20 minutes.

Yes, all the tools, hoses and wire that formally occupied the salon floor are gone and thanks to Frances and some great carpet cleaner, so are the dirt and stains on the carpet that happened over the winter.

The engine hatches are closed with just about everything we wanted to do down there complete. The shabby old - and partially missing - accent stripes on the cabin side have even been been repainted.

And the boot stripe was repainted. Next, we tackle the bottom paint.

But we still had one more day to work this weekend so we cleaned and painted the fly bridge floor, which is actually the roof of the salon.

It looked pretty good once it was finished.

While this was going on, Frances scrubbed the cabin roof and decks, from the bow pulpit back as far as the windshield with Dirtex. Scrubbing like this on her hands and knees wasn't easy. We had to haul water to rinse it but now that it's really clean, it too can be painted.

Even though it had been a long day, Frances wanted to refinish the trim around the door under the vanity. She threw herself into that job, as she does with everything on this boat.

And as usual, her attention to detail paid off.