Pittsboro, NC

With all the activity we had sewing the salon cushions, I forgot to post about the new roof on our house!

The origianl contract for the roof replacement was for Friday - but that's the day that Hurricane Helene roared thru....rescheduled for Saturday.  

Here are the "before"  photos.  We got 30 years out of this roof - I think we got our money's worth!  We had a few leaks and some rotten areas on the underlayment.  No structural damage though.

The crew arrived just as scheduled and got right to work.  Noisy process!!!  We were in the basement doing the last of the cushion work.

Funny seeing the roof bare...

 

 They did replace several pieces of underlayment so they had a pristine surface to lay the new shingles.

They put new "thru hulls" on all the vent pipes.  Once they started laying down the shingles, it was quick.

 

All done!  Nice new architectural style shingles make it look a bit more upscale.

 

The sun was setting so this side looks a little washed out....hopefully we'll get another 30 years out of this roof!  Glad we just paid for this replacement and didn't think twice about "doing it ourselves"....

 

s

Pittsboro, NC

 

I am pleased that this project is mostly done!!!  I won't bore you with repeat photos of each cushion as they are similar.  Will have to wait until we get it back to the boat to announce a complete success but right now it measures exactly as we'd planned.  Yay!  So glad this is done!! The Ultrafabrics faux leather feels wonderful to the touch.  Soft and breathable.  

The only other big sewing project I have left for now is to make a new jib cover for Sojourn.  Not a rush because the existing one is intact and doing it's job protecting from sunlight.  It's just thin and will tear eventually.  Will tackle that project in the next few months.

Pittsboro, NC

Next up was a seat back.....the originals:

Front

 

 

And the back:

 Assembling the pieces for the new cover.

 

One done! 

The back view:

 

How it will look in the boat.

After a rest, we tackled another bottom cushion.  3 done, 3 to go!

Pittsboro, NC

 I never really showed you the "before" cushions....This is the real leather cushion - in very good condition when we bought the boat over 7 years ago.

But daily wear and tear rubbed the surface and there were a few tears. Plus I never really loved the color anyway!

 Back to the basement....sewing the internal zipper panel on.

 

 

For those of you interested, we sewed in a layer of 1/4" Sewfoam to the main seat area to help it maintain it's shape and not get "wrinkly". (the black surface).

Eased in boxing all the way around.  Ready for final assembly.

All done - cushion 1 of 6....

Backside of the cushion.

And side view.  Pretty pleased so far!!

Not really looking forward to several more days of sewing.....but beats the alternative of paying megabucks to an upholsterer.

P.S. for those of you interested, we're using UltraFabrics Brisa brand material.  Expensive but supposedly very durable.  Love, the soft feel of it.  I had ordered several different samples of the UltraLeather and Brisa fabrics.   I chose the Brisa because I just loved the Cambridge Blue pattern.  I could instantly see that it just looks absolutely natural with our countertop color that is the main "theme" in the salon.  

It is a bit stretchy - we made sure the stretch is the same direction on all the seats as we laid them out for cutting.  And I have quite a bit of fabric left over so if the bottom cushions show wear in a few years I can easily make new covers for them.  

Pittsboro, NC

 The shingles and various "thru the roof" gaskets were delivered early this morning.  The original schedule for the new roof was tomorrow.....but Hurricane Helene will dump copious amounts of rain on us tomorrow.  So the work is now tentatively scheduled for Saturday.   I guess the crews work when they can!

We worked an 8 hour shift yesterday on the salon seats....I know it doesn't look like much progress but we now have all of the components cut out and are starting to assemble.  I think there are 12 zippers!  These long runs of stitching requires lots of thread.  Lots of bobbin changes.   Did I mention that I HATE making up bobbins for some reason, haha?  Hope everyone is safe from the hurricane.  Looks like it will mostly miss most of the folks we know but appears to be a dangerous one for those in it's initial path!

P.S. - thanks for the words of encouragement....I know several of you have already tackled the upholstery we are now doing. 

Pittsboro,NC

 The great cushion project is underway at last. Much whining will follow  

Pittsboro, Oriental, Pittsboro, NC

 Just got back from a quick trip to the boat.  The battery charger on Oasis was not working so we had to buy a new one.  Hate that!!!!  Oh well, we installed that then got busy with another big project....replacing the salon windows.  

We first tried to make a pattern using a shower curtain material.  But it was too stretchy.  The pattern needs to be fairly accurate.  

 

 So we ditched that idea and headed to the hardware store.  Luckily, they had a "window" material that was very stiff.  Just $1 per foot so not too pricey.  Measured out a big long piece (we're doing both boats!).

 

 

 Much better - very thick stiff material.

Made patterns for all 8 windows - oddly, they're not all exactly the same - close but not exact.  We've ordered the acrylic from Piedmont Plastics near Raleigh.  It will be here Monday - the Duane will have to use some weights to slowly introduce a slight "bend". 

And we took all of the salon cushions....much more on that project in the days to come!  Driving back to Pittsboro for several weeks.

Pittsboro, NC

 The torrential rains lately have shown us a couple of new leaks in our 30 year old shingle roof....time to bite the bullet and get a new roof installed.  Our next door neighbor suggested a good local roofer so we got him to come out this morning and do an estimate.  We're pleased with the setup - picked out a shingle color and we'll have a new roof in a few weeks.  Glad that's one chore that someone else is going to do!!

Pittsboro, NC

I'll be starting a sewing project in the next few days....the dreaded salon cushions!!  

My "sewing closet" at the house has gotten absolutely stuffed with various "end of project" bags/boxes.  I pulled it all out and organized it (and threw a lot away!!)

And now it's not so chaotic!  I'll be setting up my upholstery sewing machine in the basement for the project but it was nice to get everything inventoried and organized so at least I remember what I have now!  Waiting on a few shipments before I can start the cushions.    Otherwise, it's just crazy rainy here.

 

Pittsboro, NC

Back in Pittsboro - it seems a bit like fall....looking towards the runway some nice tom turkeys.  As soon as I went out on the deck, they scurried away. 

 

Oriental, NC

 Today is going to be a do-nothing day, I'm afraid....woke to patter-patter of raindrops.  Wonderful temperature.....

We had actually talked about packing up and going to the house for a while today....but now we think we'll just hunker down and read a book.  There's always tomorrow and hopefully it will not be rainy!

Oriental,NC

Something I haven't really discussed is how we handle our holding tanks when we are at the dock for extended periods.  We have two 20 gallon holding tanks for our toilets....when these are full we use this handy little "pump out trolly".  Not a pleasant task but has to be done of course!  This cart washed up in a hurricane many years ago in pretty good shape.   Several folks that have stayed on the dock over the years have done various repairs and adding replacement parts....Duane had to make some repairs recently and suggested that maybe we should cover it up vs. letting it sit out in the weather 24/7.  (If you're wondering about specifics - we have a septic system on the property and we simply drain the cart contents directly into the septic field cleanout port).

So I bought a medium duty tarp at Harbor Freight for $8 and got busy designing and cutting out pieces to sew together in a rough box-like shape.  Still loving those clips vs straight pins!  Just sewed up the long seams.

Did a quick fitting and determined it was too long so marked it and cut off about 4" all around. 

Hemmed the bottom just to add some stability at the base.

And added some webbing a clips to hold it snug so it won't blow off.  A good few hour project!  Maybe this will help extend it's life a bit.

N

Oriental, NC

 I know Sept 11th is a somber day - but for our family it was also my dad's birthday.

He would have been 85 today.  Amazing he's been gone 31 years now.  

 

This photo always makes me smile. 

 

Oriental, NC

 Oh, it's just lovely weather!!!

The view in the morning.

A small chore I'd been meaning to do was to "stuff" the seat of the dinghy with foam.  Last year in the Bahamas the seat fabric was falling apart from sun exposure over the years.  So I used Sunbrella to make a "pocket" to make it usable for the remainder of the season but I didn't have any foam with me.  Time do fix that.

I just used my bread knife to cut the Dry-Fast foam to size.

Here's the sad little deflated seat removed from the dinghy.

With a bit of strong-arming, I did get the foam in place (luckily, I had the foresight to sew velcro on both ends of the blue Sunbrella to ease this process)

Back installed in the dinghy.  Now my tush will have a nice soft landing!

And now the view in the evening!