WIP - freshen up the salon

Little by little we've been painting the interior of the boat. One of the things we LOVE about modern catamarans is the very sparse use of wood (and thus very little need for the labor intensive care of wood). So a few coats of white paint and things look like new again.

We did the book nook and galley last year, and since it's one continuous hunk of fiberglass, we were left with this awkward little transition from the freshly painted to the not-yet-painted.

(actually this is not the exact transition spot, but you get the idea in our kind-of-white to WHITE paint job)

Step one, empty the salon. Sounds easy, but this is our main hanging out/ living/ eating/ playing/ crafting/ learning/ everything space. Many people have come aboard our boat and commented that is looks like a kindergarten. (have a peek here of photos from last spring of our salon). We emptied everything and joked that this is what it would look like if respectable grown ups lived here.

(feast your eyes for it shall never be this clean and empty again)

Of course the floating kindergarten and everything else has to go somewhere. So other corners of the boat were packed to the brim.

(the book nook becomes one of our temporary storage spaces during painting)

Ahhh the joys of living in a work in progress. Normally, our division of labor has Doug sanding and prepping while I paint (we ladies tend to have a steadier hand at the detail work in my opinion). But alas, paint fumes in tight spaces are not a good thing for expecting mamas, so Doug got to paint while we made ourselves scarce during the days.

(uh, honey, you missed a spot!)

Two coats of paint and 5 coats of varnish on the little bit of wood trim we do have means many, many days of living like this.

(breakfast on the floor... Zach thought it was fun, it made me a little crazy, especially with pregnancy nesting hormones a-raging)

(poor Mookie had to live with the stinky fumes. so far he seems no worse for it, who can tell with that little guinea pig brain?)

So things are looking brighter and I am taking the opportunity of a fresh slate to purge and thin out the "stuff" we had in the salon. I often wonder if getting rid of stuff obsessively can be a sickness just like people who collect it obsessively?

The bright white is already helping our lighting in here...

... and it's also making the windows look dirty and the floor look dingy (one of our future projects! New floor before baby comes, mama's orders!) We'll probably be the only ones who notice the change once it's all finished, change is small in a small space, but I'll post some photos at the end anyhow. In the mean time, does anyone know how to get paint out of guinea pig fur?