Alicatt
Well-known member
And so it begins.
Casper, yesterday, looking lonely and unloved, waiting for a clear spell to get the tent off and give it a good clean.
Casper is getting a small make over, not as in depth as @kashurst is doing to his boat but still she needs updating.
While the weather is being inclement here, we decided to get on with what we could from home tackling the upholstery.
We had gone to Maastricht just after Xmas to the open air market and got some fabric as a test swatch but we needed more.
We planned a trip to the shop rather than the market to get more fabric and at the same time we decided to go to Ikea and the outdoor leisure shop that sells components for motorhomes caravans and boats.
When we got to the fabric shop looking at the range of fabrics they had we decided on a change of plan and colour with the purchase of a better quality water resistant fabric. That was 2 weeks ago.
Bluish Grey water resistant upholstery fabric
After the fabric shop we went to the camping shop De Wit Schijndel. Oh Boy, it was HUGE, they cater for just about every type of outdoor sport/hobby. We looked around and got a few small items but did not see the DIY stuff for making your own motorhome or caravan. We had lunch in their restaurant which for a cafeteria was quite good, we continued our search upstairs where the tents and camping items were, we did see some things that were close to what we were looking for but it was still not exactly what we wanted. One tent caught our eye for all the wrong reasons, at €15k it was eye watering dear!
We got directed across the road to their other warehouse where they kept the diy articles, the door opened and it was an Aladdin’s cave. One of the things my wife wanted was to convert the boat from gas to electric, so I walked her through the items that would be needed for that and she changed her mind, back to gas we go, I need to re do all the gas fittings etc. as a previous owner had kind of butchered the system, drilling a large hole in the bottom of the gas locker so he could use a larger gas cylinder, the pipe work had been cut and joined together with proper gas hose but the length of those sections were too long and they were not fitted properly either, the gas hob is rusted and parts are broken so we will be replacing it. After looking at the different range of combination sinks with gas hobs they were all a bit on the small side to replace what we have on board, so we took measurements for reference and will look at what we can do.
The hob unit that should fit to replace the 2 burner one in the boat
Next was Ikea for a few things including a couple of single size mattresses to replace the thin foam that the previous owner had there, we also got cutlery and we had already picked up a full 6 setting diner service in a thrift shop in Dumbarton last year, it was unused and still in it’s original packaging, it was a bargain at £2
My wife inherited her mother’s sewing machine, it is fairly old and had not been used in more than 10 years, so it was unsurprising that it only partially worked, the Zig did not Zag.
Thursday night was spent stripping the machine down and finding the cam follower for the zig-zag was seized on the shaft, lucky it was only the grease that had gone solid locking the cam follower from moving, freeing it up and re assembling the machine, re timing it and now it works great.
Mrs Catt had used the foam that the previous owner had left in the bow and made a template to cut up the foam of the Ikea mattress, first we used a sharp knife but that was a bit of a pain so I used the electric carving knife and it cut through the foam mattress like a knife through foam…
I took the foam to the boat to check for fit and it was perfect, back home again and we cut up the mattress cover to fit the new shape and Mrs Catt sewed it up, that’s when we found out the sewing machine didn’t zag.
Today has been spent picking apart the covers of the seats to use them as patterns for the new fabric
And the cushions now
the back rests have been done too.
And my back may forgive me by tomorrow
Casper, yesterday, looking lonely and unloved, waiting for a clear spell to get the tent off and give it a good clean.
Casper is getting a small make over, not as in depth as @kashurst is doing to his boat but still she needs updating.
While the weather is being inclement here, we decided to get on with what we could from home tackling the upholstery.
We had gone to Maastricht just after Xmas to the open air market and got some fabric as a test swatch but we needed more.
We planned a trip to the shop rather than the market to get more fabric and at the same time we decided to go to Ikea and the outdoor leisure shop that sells components for motorhomes caravans and boats.
When we got to the fabric shop looking at the range of fabrics they had we decided on a change of plan and colour with the purchase of a better quality water resistant fabric. That was 2 weeks ago.
Bluish Grey water resistant upholstery fabric
After the fabric shop we went to the camping shop De Wit Schijndel. Oh Boy, it was HUGE, they cater for just about every type of outdoor sport/hobby. We looked around and got a few small items but did not see the DIY stuff for making your own motorhome or caravan. We had lunch in their restaurant which for a cafeteria was quite good, we continued our search upstairs where the tents and camping items were, we did see some things that were close to what we were looking for but it was still not exactly what we wanted. One tent caught our eye for all the wrong reasons, at €15k it was eye watering dear!
We got directed across the road to their other warehouse where they kept the diy articles, the door opened and it was an Aladdin’s cave. One of the things my wife wanted was to convert the boat from gas to electric, so I walked her through the items that would be needed for that and she changed her mind, back to gas we go, I need to re do all the gas fittings etc. as a previous owner had kind of butchered the system, drilling a large hole in the bottom of the gas locker so he could use a larger gas cylinder, the pipe work had been cut and joined together with proper gas hose but the length of those sections were too long and they were not fitted properly either, the gas hob is rusted and parts are broken so we will be replacing it. After looking at the different range of combination sinks with gas hobs they were all a bit on the small side to replace what we have on board, so we took measurements for reference and will look at what we can do.
The hob unit that should fit to replace the 2 burner one in the boat
Next was Ikea for a few things including a couple of single size mattresses to replace the thin foam that the previous owner had there, we also got cutlery and we had already picked up a full 6 setting diner service in a thrift shop in Dumbarton last year, it was unused and still in it’s original packaging, it was a bargain at £2
My wife inherited her mother’s sewing machine, it is fairly old and had not been used in more than 10 years, so it was unsurprising that it only partially worked, the Zig did not Zag.
Thursday night was spent stripping the machine down and finding the cam follower for the zig-zag was seized on the shaft, lucky it was only the grease that had gone solid locking the cam follower from moving, freeing it up and re assembling the machine, re timing it and now it works great.
Mrs Catt had used the foam that the previous owner had left in the bow and made a template to cut up the foam of the Ikea mattress, first we used a sharp knife but that was a bit of a pain so I used the electric carving knife and it cut through the foam mattress like a knife through foam…
I took the foam to the boat to check for fit and it was perfect, back home again and we cut up the mattress cover to fit the new shape and Mrs Catt sewed it up, that’s when we found out the sewing machine didn’t zag.
Today has been spent picking apart the covers of the seats to use them as patterns for the new fabric
And the cushions now
the back rests have been done too.
And my back may forgive me by tomorrow
