A proper head

I've been awfully sick for most of this week. I could tell I was definitely on the mend this morning when, after my waking-up quart of water (not kidding) I hauled the door to the head (bathroom) into the cockpit, ran the sander up there, and started dealing with the damn thing.

It has been perched on an open track ever since the labor party. Regis took it down and inspected the damage, delivered his recommendations, and left all the hardware just where I could find it. I never got to it until now.

After buzzing the crap off the foot of the door, and buzzing down the parts where it got hung up and refused to close properly, I decided that wheels were never going to work inside that door again. There was too little undamaged wood to hold them. The door was going to have to slide, rather than roll, back and forth. Between the constant shower of dust from land, the cat litter, and feet going back and forth, it's just not going to happen. What could keep it moving under those circumstances?

Can you figure it out? I was rather pleased when I did.

I cut 2 short lengths of polypropylene tubing, left over from doing the freshwater plumbing. I screwed them into the bottom of the door, one over each wheel well. I shaved the edges of the tubing, so there would be no sharp edge in contact with the track.

I tried mounting it, but that made the door too high.

I cut the polypro tubing in thirds, lengthwise. Using all the predrilled holes, I screwed it right in. Works like a charm. Time will tell how well it holds up, but the great thing is, it's cheap and easy to do.

I closed the track up again, and now my door goes all the way open, all the way closed, locks in both positions, and doesn't hurt to use.

Man, it really is the simple things in life.

Back to front; front to back

I've been dreading & procrastinating stripping out the forepeak. I finally realized why:

- It has no natural light, unless you leave the head door open.
- It's a tiny, tiny cave.
- It sits on top of the holding tank (= septic tank) and right next to a toilet that's at least 20 years old.

And I thought I was going to sleep there!!

I realized that I like the quarter berth. I like waking up next to the water supply and the radio, then looking around at some very pretty wood and the busy heart of my busy little life.

I got a lovely roll of foam last week that I was going to turn into settee cushions. I'm going to use it as the foundation of my new bed in the quarter-berth. It's a much less intimidating place to strip and refinish, and that means down-time will be minimal.

The forepeak is going to be my office, as I originally contemplated (last year.) I miss having a wide, flat space to stretch out in -- both in the sense of spreading a project out, and in the sense of opening up my joints and staying limber. I don't mind working in a cave, I just can't feature the dreams my impressionable subconscious would come up with if I were sleeping there.

Famous last words

I was so sanguine about putting in the rest of the countertop. What a labor that turned into. Took 2 weeks, and several false starts, to get a matching set of brackets. Strange that such a standard item should be so hard to find.

I won't tell you about wiggling the damn thing in and out 8 times a day, chiseling space for hardware interuptus, managing NOT to knock the damn fuel gauge out of the bulkhead, pinched fingers, scraped bulkhead, etc etc etc. My god, what a chore.

[img: countertop in situ]

The countertop is 2 pieces of redwood fencing plank, glued together. I realized that it was the best bang for the buck: smoothly milled, straight & fairly clean, and very beautiful. Since these are rarely cut from heartwood, I had to go through and look for the most promising planks; dug through about 40 pieces to get 6 I liked. (The rest are in storage awaiting future projects.)

Now that it's done, I'm glad it works out the way I was hoping it would. I can still get to all my pans, there's room for everything, and the red oak and redwood are odd together but, in my opinion, perfectly beautiful:

[img: lid raised]

Yes, I have the pix, but my camera is hiding. The cabin is a worse mess than ever.

I did pull the faucet in the head apart. I thought I could fix it, but no go; it's truly kaput. I did learn that, if you park the pump handle pointing away from you, it holds the prime better & you get more out of it. This means the faucet in the galley is working better than it ever has:

[img: gushing faucet]