There’s a saying amongst boating cruisers:

Cruising is boat work – or in our case, make that renovations – in exotic places.

How true that is, as this week Bob and I worked at a pace to complete painting and varnishing the pilot house.

By late Saturday, the pilot house reno was finished, with the foam from our old mattresses put to good use.

The time had now arrived to work at transforming the old bed next to the galley into a dining area.

With a table that can be altered in height, this will also become the visitors’ abode when friends or family join us. The section of bed that was beneath the deck is to be converted into cupboards, thereby providing additional storage space.

Before any cutting could be done, the first step was to empty the area in which the table pedestal was to be positioned. This small process saw much of the morning disappear as the two of us partook in rearranging the current storage area in both our bedroom and beneath the bed that was to be reshaped. These few hours saw a massive lightening of the load in Gratis, as unrequired gear was given the ‘big heave’.

This process completed, Bob at last got to work

cutting out the centre of the bed with his jigsaw.

By the time we were ready for a late lunch, despite the base not being attached to the floor, to Bob’s delight it was possible to have a trial run with the new table set up: he loved it!!!

Stomach satisfied, back to work he went.

A doorway was cut into the base of the back section that remained, making for easy access to the storage area below what would become cupboards,

the pedestal screwed to the floor, and the tabletop height set.

The final process for the day was doing the initial shaping of the wood that would become the cupboard frontage.