Measure twice... or maybe three times

We spent another couple of hours on the boat to charge the batteries and the get answers  to some of the questions that arose as we prepared to refinish the "guest berth" walls and now, electrical wiring.

We mentioned previously that we wanted to make an insert for one of the two sinks in the galley. We got the rough measurements last week and we used those to cut a cardboard pattern. Now we needed to get the corners right and we traced a pattern of the corners using another small piece of cardboard.

We know there's a tool for copying that radius but we don't have one so we traced it from below. After a couple of tries we got it close and we transferred the corners to our cardboard pattern.

As we also mentioned before, we're going to make this insert out of a piece of butcher block that was at one time, the top to a marine princess stove. It's amazing what we can come up with from our stock of old boat stuff.

Anyway, we have only one chance to get this right so taking a little extra time on it is worthwhile.

With the sink insert measurement out of the way, we went back to the guest berth rehab project. When we studied the photos from last week's disassembly, lots of questions came up and today was a good time to take some more photos for planning purposes.

For instance, Where exactly will the new reading light for the lower bunk go? The conduit shown in the photos covers the 12 volt power wires for the reading light in the v-berth. (The light shown up near the ceiling is battery powered and will be removed.) Do we find power for the new reading light in that circuit and if so, we'll have to hide that behind another section of conduit. We can do that provided the conduit is mounted in a way that it doesn't interfere with the raising and lowering of the top berth.

Yes, measure twice and cut once, as they say.

All of that wall covering will be painted so the lengths of conduit will not be anywhere as obvious as they are now.

New new reading lamps are flush mounted and wired from behind so we'll have to figure out how to accommodate that.

We removed the old POS plastic reading light from the opposite wall. The power wires were connected with electrical tape, something that, for us at least, has no place on a boat.

That wall is a mess with lots of tears in the wall covering, orphaned holes and a few stains. We can fill the rips and holes as we did in the galley and once painted they will disappear. If we mount a new reading light where the old one was, we'll have to rewire it so that operates independently of the cabin lighting circuit where it is currently connected.

There is also lots of other stuff going on with that wall.

This shot shows our TV folded out but normally is is folded back against that wall. The red bungee cord holds it in place when we're underway. The antique reading light in the upper left will go because it's not in a place that a guest could use and it is behind the TV when it's folded back against the wall.

The dangling wires (cable TV and power) will be hidden behind surface-mount plastic conduit and will go through the wall right under the door to that little locker. We'll have to leave enough slack in those wires so the TV will still be able to swing out.

This seemed like a simple little job for the long winter months but like everything else on an old boat, the more you dig, the more you see things that should be fixed and done correctly.