Salon & Galley

The salon on our Commander 42 reflected years of liveaboard use by a smoker when we acquired her in 2011. The walls, doors, windows and trim literally dripped with smoke/nicotine residue. The headliner was brown. The salon had no flooring (we suspect the previous owner took out the carpeting when he was selling the boat because of odor concerns).

We began the salon refit by yanking out the headliner and original insulation. After buying a gallon jug of Awesome brand cleaner, we got rid of all evidence of smoke residue dripping down the walls etc. Next, we had to do something about the floors mostly because the hatches were in bad shape from being removed and installed carelessly over the years. Rather than replacing the marine plywood that makes up the surface of the hatches and subflooring, we opted to re-skin them with 1/8" sapele plywood. But first, I replaced the hatch framing that was broken since before we bought the boat.

I use shellac as the base coats, then will overcoat with floor polyurethane in the spring. One of the sapele panels was very dark in color, but for our purposes the variation really doesn't matter. It's much better than what was there.

In addition to what you see in the picture above, what you can't see is the Rug Buddy under carpet radiant floor heater. At 470 watts, it puts a very nice amount of heat right where you want it. And because the heat is spread out over 6x8 feet, it doesn't create a narrow column of heat like oil radiator heaters produce.

The sofa seen below unfolds into a queen-size bed.