That next morning I was excited! We were on the way to accomplishing a part of our dreams on the Ohana. So I got up and was out drilling the holes for the boat chairs, using the base of the seat as a template.
Once we had re-installed the chair padding we installed down the seats themselves with the new stainless steel hardware we had purchased.
After a bit our new sky bench was complete!
The boat seats also had a great lock feature to hold them in their down position while traveling.
Laura snapped a few pictures that evening of me showing the sky bench to our daughter Lia when she got home. 😊
Okay, so rewind back to earlier that day. When Laura was with me again we were ready to finish up our inside window trim! Long story short, I ended up ordering a box of 1″ backer rod to fill some of the gapping in the windows; mainly the large window over the couch. We figured we could trim down the rod as necessary if the rest of the gaps were any smaller. With that the windows were trimmed!
Wait, that’s not true- I was still in mid-process of problem solving the very front two windows.
With the whole nose now being crafted of spray foam- there was not substantial way for me to gain purchase for a curtain system. This was unless I wanted to run the mounting point way high of the windows to where there was plywood, or run bolts all the way through to the outside of the shell. (Neither I wanted to do) I could re-skin the whole area, but it already had turned out the way we liked it once it was painted. So I came up with another plan…
…5 gallon paint sticks! I had already had a grip of them, so I cut the handles and primed them with spray paint. I would just use them to build a frame around the windows, that would be secured by the window trim being tightened down into place.
While paint was drying, I started tearing all the carpeting out of the bathroom. The overall goal was to get the floor of The Ohana ready for new sub-flooring.
Once I removed the carpet… look at what I found!
See that white area under the carpeted base cove? See it?! That is more open space straight to the outside. Still having a hard time seeing it? Wait, I can help! Let me pull that base cove for you! Now here is a shot straight down the wall…
Just a little open air, that’s all! So… we pulled the old nails out that we could, and I sucked the wall into the subfloor using heavy duty timberlock screws. Once the opening was mostly closed we filled any remaining voids with spray foam, including the open space that was in the back of the closet next to the bathroom as well.
We said goodbye to the old toilet and left it at the salvage area at our landfill. After some quick measurements we were excited to discover that we could finally get the toilet we had always wanted! No matter how I tried, we had to get a toilet a tier below the one we wanted to due to clearance issues in Serenity; but The Ohana had the space!
During this time we fired up Kalcifer for the first time in awhile- this was so we could cement in the stove gasketing we had installed.
To prep for the sub-floor I pulled the trim on the sides of Kalcifer’s hearth. I wasn’t sure if I was going to make new trim altogether, but I did want to solve one problem…
See all the fuzzy stuff? That is sawdust and dirt from wood stove operations. The problem was that the original trim was built up taller than the edge of the tile, so debris would fall down behind the trim, and was difficult to sweep out. Whatever my trim solution would be for this, I wanted to design it so you could easily sweep debris into the dustpan without it getting trapped.
When we had removed the laminate flooring, we uncovered the original table post holes. I had gone back and forth on whether I wanted to assemble a table to utilize these, but in the end decided to use the folding table system the previous owner had used. So I pulled the post hole cups.
I cut insulation plugs, wrapped them in heavy moisture barrier, and secured them in to place on top and bottom. The plan was eventually they would get be lined in from below as well. Next it was time to take some measurements and get down to cutting and laying down the new sub-floor layer!
As the glue settled, we carefully worked our way around inside and started installing our new curtain system! Here was prototype A, in which we used washers to secure the top, and were going to put velcro tabs to secure at the top and the bottom.
But on the fly we ended up making a way better system! We made 4 securing points using washers across the top of each curtain. We used double sided velcro strip and secured it under the two center washers. We stuck pieces together to make the “tail” length necessary to wrap up each curtain, and let an inch or so sticking out the top to grab it. In the end it turned out super slick!
We installed the “framing” around the two front windows so we could continue or curtain procession.
The curtains turned out sooooo good!!!
To secure the curtains in the down position, to block out light and insulate, I ordered heavy duty sticky back velcro, and had to create a make-shift jig set up to cut velcro circles.
Once the circles were cut, we determined the placement of the fasteners and mounted the washers into the walls, then stuck the velcro over the screw heads. And with that, our spiffy new curtain system was complete!
Geoff Murphy 7/18/2020