Although Per Angusta was in her shed and Darren had done some work on her, he was still finishing off a fit-out for a hire company. Things still progressed quickly and when we went up to see her on 12 June she had already been sprayfoamed for insulation and battoned out in preparation for the cabin linings. Her ballast was in so she was sitting slightly lower in the water than when I had last seen her.
What we had to do now was decide where we wanted lights to go and where the light switches would be, as Darren needed to put all the wiring in before the cabin lining went up.
One of the things we had liked on Darren's boat Whisper was the unobtrusive lighting and light switches, plus the ability to have various combinations of lights on. I don't think we had realised how much thought would have to go into the light placement - paricularly when some areas have multiple uses. For example, the salon would double as a bedroom so were the light switches positioned such that people could switch them off and then not stumble over things trying to get back to bed?
Before we could decide where to put the lights and switches in the salon, we had to decide what people were going to sleep on. Originally we had thought that we would have two chairs which converted to single beds and we had concentrated on looking at those. However, on our way home from a 2 week trip on Scimitar we stopped off at Wilsons of Kinver (boat cover and boat furniture specialists) to look at their chairs. But we tried their convertible Stour sofa and it was very comfortable both as a bed and seating. We decided that we would have either two of their chairs or the sofa, and we settled on the material to be used - which was excellent because it meant that we had a starting point for our interior decoration scheme.
I spent the night before we went up sticking newspapers together with sellotape, to represent the foot prints of two bed chairs and the convertible sofa (both folded up and set out as beds). Then when we got to the boat, we spent time seeing how two chairs as opposed to a sofa would work - both as sitting and sleeping arrangements. With the newspaper templates, it became obvious that the sofa was the most practical choice.
It was a month before we could get back up to see the boat (it's tough when you have to go on holiday) but we still had to make decisions. Darren sent us through some hardwood samples for the flooring but none of them grabbed us. With the light ash cabin, we wanted a contrast for the flooring - Darren tracked down some beautiful dark walnut and that gave us the contrast we wanted.
When we went back on 17 July, there was quite a transformation. Yards of cabling had gone in,the base of the floor was down and a lot of the lining had been done. Darren had also finished his other fit-out so would now be able to work full-time on Per Angusta.
We went off to Darren's plumbing supplier to look at sinks, taps, etc. Came away with a stack of brochures to study. Paul had been back to check the wiring installation and that the line out was going to plan. Another couple of weeks and the lineout would be finished, with the bulkheads up - so we would have cabins!
On 30 July we were back again, to meet Paul and Darren for the line out completion inspection. Plus we were going to look for tiles at local tile shops. We had found the handbasin we wanted for the bathroom, a wall mounted basin without any counter top or vanity unit. Only problem - how do you mount it on the outer edge of the boat? Can't really put bolts through the steel! Finding a handbasin small enough for the back loo proved problematic as well but we think we have managed to track a stylish one down.
We were tasked with choosing the tiles for the bathroom and this proved very difficult, all the nicest pattern/colour combinations were on tiles which were just too big for the space we had. I think we must have looked at over a 1,000 tiles in about 5 or 6 tile warehouses before we made our decision and even then it was not starightforward. The listellos we wanted were by a different manufacturer to the main tiles, and they wouldn't sell the listellos without the matching tiles. In the end, we bought the minimum quantity of plain white 'matching' tiles which we should be able to use when we refit a kitchen at home.
Paul gave Per Angusta another clean bill health, so another chunk of money was due to Darren. Things were moving on and the line out stage was complete.
Click on a thumbnail to see a larger picture
