Tuesday 15 January 2008

Down below.

The interior of our boat has always been very important to me. One of my principal criteria when we first decided to live aboard fulltime was that my boat had to be a comfortable haven. Granted there are compromises to be made when you are going to take your 'house' out across oceans but I knew that if the boat wasn't as comfortable as our land based home had been that I would not be happy!

As we close up our home in England, for the final time, I am turning my thoughts to a refit of 'below'! As I have been thinking about fabrics and upholstery and varnish I have come across some lovely items that I would like to find space for....

We had a reasonable collection of paintings when land based but sadly these are all too large to find a home onboard . Also in such a small space a very different style of art will be my choice. With limited space to hang pictures, and we already have a lot of photographs displayed, I am much more discriminating as to what I will give room to!

What that means in reality is that I have bought hardly anything !! Just can't make up my mind...

I found these super 'arty' plates on the net and have been lusting over some of the designs, I love the lobster one.


These paintings are pretty good representations of ocean waves but I am not sure that I want to live with that below decks as well as above. The jury is still out on that one.

Like many cruisers we have collected our share of 'souvenirs' as we have traveled around. A hand carved sea-turtle from Tobago to celebrate seeing our first leatherback.Hand made jewelery made from calabashes grown in Colombia, couldn't convince TBH that I really needed the emeralds that were on offer!

And of course far too many 'molas' from the San Blas Islands. These extraordinary pieces of reverse appliqué embroidery have a way of insinuating themselves into the boat, could be the sales techniques of the VERY determined Kuna women.

I have a stack of them waiting to be turned in to cushion covers and other useful items...may be sometime as my skills as a needlewoman are truly lacking.

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