Planning In Progress

(Boat Flamingo - posted by Alan)

When we bought Flamingo, without a doubt the most unsightly and messed about with part of it was the bathroom, (or more accurately the war zone claimed to be the bathroom).

The previous owner had decided to take the very oversized bathroom that was already in the boat when he bought it, and rip down bulkheads to make it even longer by about an additional three feet.

A very large bath had been put in.  I hesitate to use words like "installed" because it hadn't been.  Although never properly fitted, the side panel that went with it had already been smashed and crudely glued back together.

Where tiling had been ripped down we just had frayed plywood where it had once been, and black plastic had been taped over much of the damaged area.

There was no chance of heating sufficient water to fill a full sized bath, and, anyway, the main fresh water tank really didn't have the capacity to support that either.

There was no wash basin.

A bizarre underfloor heating system had been hand crafted from large bore copper pipe, and the main radiator circuit diverted to include it, thus destroying any natural flow assisted by gravity.

Some time back we had spent much effort relocating the bulkhead at the rear end back to where it had once been, thus still giving us a very large bathroom, but giving us 3 feet of extra kitchen space rearward of it, (ultimately the whole kitchen will be moved forward, to give more living space behind).  We had to decommission a radiator, (because it had been placed where we moved the bulkhead back to), and we also ripped out the underfloor heating.  Much ingenuity was used to get rid of most of the wall damage.

However because we were not ready for a full bathroom refit, we had temporarily reused the massive bath, but moved forward by 3 feet.  We couldn't really bath in it, but it could still be used as a large shower tray.  We have survived this way for several trips, and general living aboard at the mooring.

However we have now decided that refitting the new bathroom should be our next priority.  My previous post explains that we have already had to move the calorifier, (the hot water tank), to one corner of the bathroom.  Some space has been used up, as a result, but it was really the only way we could put back a system that worked, (and could be worked upon).

So thoughts have turned to how the rest of it should look.  We have decided to retain a bath, but a much smaller one - it can mostly be used as a shower of course.  I find modelling ideas in the free version of SketchUp to be highly useful for visualising how things will fit together.  I can rotate the model and view from any angle, taking in and out individual elements.  I can even "walk through" the bathroon if I choose.  What is reproduced here are of course just 2 dimensional images, but the whole tool is remarkably powerful.

We are happy we have a way forward.  Unfortunately actually getting our preferred parts has proved harder, and we have not been able  to order up our first choice of bath in a time frame that is acceptable.  So in fact the sketch-up images already need modifying, as the alternate choice of bath will not now be one with a seat in it.