Drawers, drawers everywhere...

Not a huge amount of progress to see and photograph on the boat this visit, but a lot of work has been going on behind the scenes that we couldn't see. However, Neil has made the cupboard doors for the bedroom, and built 2 lovely bedside cabinets, each with 5 drawers for the unmentionables. I asked for all the drawers on the boat to be behind cupboard doors, to give a uniform appearance to the interior - and it means there are less handles for me to bruise myself on - I'm good at doing that! My one unchangeable rule for the boat is NO SHARP CORNERS!

As I've said before, we are having maple for the bulkheads and cabinetry, with oak for the trimming to make a bit of a contrast. Therefore the cabinets have oak tops, and the porthole liners, frames for the houdinis and around the side-hatches will be oak.

We are very gratified to hear that the customers for the next boat after us at Beacon were so taken with the maple/oak mix when they came to have a look, that they have chosen the same mix for their boat! Immitation is the greatest form of flattery, I always think! ( Lesley, take note - I have nicked your idea of a boatman's cupboard for our saloon, but with a glass door in the top cupboard - hope you don't mind!)

Large cupboard

Double wardrobe

Bedside cabinets - somewhere to put the early morning tea that Rog always brings me - he's good like that!

Small drawers for the small drawers - well not so small in my case!

Tiling behind the loo, (essential with a bloke on board!) - the front of the blanking piece will also be tiled

We had decided to go with our original thought and have Corian for the galley worktops, and then were persuaded by Ali to go and look at the granite anyway - she had showed us on our previous vist how easy it is to scratch the Corian - so we went to see their supplier, Quorn Stone and we were convinced! The result is that we are having granite worktops in the galley! The photo below doesn't show up the colours particularly well, but it gives an idea - it is a mixture of greys and browns, and looks so much better than the sample piece of Corian that we had - a bit darker, but we're both in love with it, so that's ok.

With all this weight in the back of the boat we'll have to keep the water tank well topped up or we'll be travelling down the canal on our rear end (that was one reason I was a bit worried about having granite, but it's not much different to Corian apparently) "Not to worry", say Ali and Neil, breezily, "We'll just take some of the ballast out of the back and put it in the front". What stars they both are - it never fazes them when I change my mind about anything - and I do that a lot!