I Love It When A Plan Comes Together

A good week on the boat front. Our visit yesterday found things very much on target with the boys comfortable with their progress and lots to see and decide on.

The day before I got a text saying we had won a prize in a competition I had entered a few weeks back. This had been on a new TV programme, “UK Boating”, which is on a satellite channel, and it was to win a year’s free marine insurance, which we have won, saving us, I would think, around £350. Luverly jubbly!

Sky 231 Freesat 402

We took up the Siemens hob I had sourced from John Lewis, but it is too big to go where we want. It can be used, but not without redesigning the galley, which both of us are loathe to do, so it.s back to Spinflow, which the boys will get from Midland Chandlers.

Spinflo 9 Hob

We took a new microwave with us, the Sony car stereo, and two Wharfedale 9 Diamond speakers. It has become apparent that I was not going to get the car speakers I wanted. The roof space they are to be mounted in is too shallow. I looked around and Richer Sounds are selling off these Wharfedale speakers at less than half price. Reduced from £100 to £39. And they sound really good for the money, so I am well pleased. Wiring them up to the Sony unit might be a bit challenging, but I am sure Mick will overcome any issues in that department.

Wharfedale Diamond 9 Bookshelf speakers

A walk through the boat found the instrumentation panels in place, and I am well pleased with them. The only thing still to go on this panel is the controller for the solar panels. The water tank is in position and the bedroom, as well as the other fixtures have been laid out with masking tape. This gives us a much better idea of how the different areas of the boat will affect each other, and we are both very happy with what we have designed. It seems to be working well.

The instument panel

There is a fair bit of space in the bedroom area, as we are having a small washine machine in there. The pipework is all done to the rads and the pipework is also in place in the bathroom. At the other end of the boat, John has started to assemble the kitchen. That should all be in when we go back, just before Christmas. The boiler is in as are the ceiling lights, which are just perfect.

Galley area with the large breakfast bar taped out

The bathroom area

The bedroom area

We are going for full LED lighting, and there followed a demo from John and Mick showing Pat the differences between soft and hard lights available. I’ve also got to design a cupboard to put my guitar in, and I haven’t got a clue what that will look like as of yet.

After leaving Trent Lock we drove over to Tamworth to Elite Furnishing, who specialise in making furniture for narrowboats. We had seen a really funky chair on their website, but found out on arrival that the patterns we wanted had been deleted during the summer.

We are ordering a settee/sofa bed from them. We might be able to squeeze a chair in as well into the saloon area, but we are going to wait to see if this is possible once we are on board.

The settee/Sofa bed will have a stripes and dots scheme

After looking through what seemed like every book of fabrics in the shop, Pat finally chose the colour scheme she wanted. It’s dark red. She wanted a burnt orange look, but I don’t want people thinking the boat is part of the Easy Jet family!

It’s a good combination, and Glen from Elite is going to Trent Lock on Tuesday to measure up for it. It’s going to cost us a bit over £1000 but we think it is worth it.

This morning I purchased our TV/DVD – an Avtex 12v combination, that I got from John Lewis, so lots of luverly discount off it. The instructions say it can accept memory sticks with films in a MP4 format, but at the moment that is not my experience. Will have to read the manual through, me thinks.

So, all is well and we are very happy. Let’s hope that continues to be the case.