Painting and refinishing: The planning phase

Our first boat-centered New Years resolution was to refinish the guest berth and the v-berth areas. When we came up with this, it looked relatively easy, especially when compared to replacing the heads on one of the engines as we did ;last summer. This weekend, we went down to take a close look at what this will entail.

The picture above shows the guest berth area with the upper bunk up in place. The bunk shown is hinged so that it folds down, making the lower bunk into something like a big sofa. Here's that same upper bunk, looking aft.

The black object on the right is our TV, which is stored against the wall but swings out and around so it can be seen from the cabin. That "thing" on the wall in the upper left is an example of the great lighting that Silverton furnished back in the day. The electrical cord is just from one of our temporary portable lights.

The old light will be replaced with a new LED reading lamp like this one.

 The walls in the boat have a fabric-like wall covering. We successfully repaired and painted that material in the head and the galley last summer. The plan is to do the same thing here, in the same color. That color, not reproduced very faithfully by our little camera, is shown on the door to the hanging locker in the upper left of the photo.

The walls don't look bad in the picture but there are some holes and all of the walls in this area could use a good cleaning prior to painting.

Luckily, we do have access to 12 volts behind this reading light so additional wiring for this light may not be needed. Read on to see why this may not work.

The lower bunk will obviously have to be removed prior to cleaning and painting. That chrome post is one of two that hold up the upper bunk.

We're also going to add another one of those LED light here on that forward wall after painting but the new light's location is somewhat limited since we have to leave clearance for the upper bunk to swing up and down. We'll also have to find a way to run the wiring to it.

Looking aft, the lower berth is a little easier. That chrome thing is a halogen reading light installed by the previous owner, we assume. That will also be replaced by one of the new LED reading lights.

Obviously, we aren't going to this much work without refinishing all of that teak trim and when you crawl in there and measure, there's a lot of it.

There are also a couple of conveniences we'd like to build in while we're at it. First, this whole guest berth area is really dark even on a sunny day. The overhead hatch is dark tinted glass and there is not  much light coming in through the port light. It would be nice to have an easily reached switch that would turn on all four of these new LED lamps and that's going to take some thought and a lot of extra wiring.

Also, the upper berth is very difficult to get in to. One has to step on the edge of the lower berth and even then, boosting one's butt up that far isn't fun for a guest, although it is kinda fun to watch. We have an idea for a pull out step that would really help. No design yet but we're working on it.

So far, we have $200 worth of new LED reading lamps and some paint. The energy to put this all to work is also about there. It should be a fun project, just like everything on this old boat.