Inside the Iron Lady.

I’ve always resisted doing this, defiantly stating that I was protecting my privacy or something. But when earlier this week I was asked to get some pictures of the important bit, the home thats inside our vessel- insight slowly dawned on me. I wasn’t protecting anything at all, I’ve just found a really noble excuse to avoid tidying up.

The incredible shrinking home that we live in is difficult to photograph, at least, armed only with an iphone it is. It’s small. There are bits I stub my toe on, other bits I bang my head on. None of the walls are straight. Its fiddly. Half finished, and often a bit of a mess. Drifts of paperwork don’t look so great on film. Nor do socks, phone chargers, cat food, unmade beds or the sodding washing up. It basically took a day to get these snaps, during the course of that day my method changed from ‘just hide the piles of crap out of shot’ into something that at least did an impression of a responsible attempt at tidying like a grown up. This only happened under duress, because I quickly discovered the piles of crap were making friends with more crap and soon I was spending the whole time just moving big piles of crap around. So I was forced, somewhat reluctantly, to actually tidy the mess up. Around this point I found the new flexible exhaust coupling for the generator hiding behind the stereo. I don’t know how it got there, but it’s clearly been there for some time. I filed it out of sight underneath the cabin sofa, with all the other things that I’m supposed to fit, or re-fit, or screw to the walls one day. There is a very real chance that it will remain there, lost with all its companions; until we change the sofa, at which point I will triumphantly announce that I’m off to renew the generators exhaust system which will take me about a fortnight to nearly finish this time before I get distracted and I’ll have to hide some different parts behind the stereo..

So for your viewing pleasure here is photographed some of our home, as she is now. In all her unfinished, unvarnished, state. The rest of it wouldn’t fit in or was covered in piles of paperwork and socks. Show home she is most certainly not at the moment. It’s probably a common experience for many many homebuilders in the closer they get to the end result, the longer achieving that result takes. And I am clearly no exception. We eventually reach a state of equilibrium, where just enough is complete to enable life to function. Looking over these pics I’m reminded of the various promises I made myself to finish this or build that, but maybe the important place to start might be more storage to hide crap in.

But, for the eagle eyed, or really keen to know, here is a list of the most obvious (i.e. large) bits that are next, waiting to be done:

polished concrete worktops in the galley

hardwood strip lining the engine room hullsides and deckheads

all those radiators want plumbing in

Yup, the real cabin sofa one day

Putting the wheelhouse table back together might be good

And the oak bathroom wall instead of that plastic.

Oh and my god do we need our electrician to visit for the 240v side of things.

I keep playing this trick on myself, to make a short list that suggests I’m nearly there. It’s a simple trick that keeps me calm. Obviously this works by excluding from the list a TON of smaller things to install, fiddle with or finish, enough to keep me going for probably the rest of my life, or longer, whichever is sooner. Becky is fond of calling them ‘snags’, but to be blunt, some of them, like sanding and varnishing that parquet floor are big and involved enough to warrant avoiding like the plague for some time longer. And it’s probably for the best that I don’t even get started on describing the list of things that are currently broken down because I will start twitching, getting cross and having palpitations and sweaty palms and that will not do at all.