Galley Refit

[ralay]

The picture below is of our galley in 2014, when we first started cruising. 

Only one of the two sinks was hooked up to a drain.  The raw water pump (teed off the engine intake) was seized.  The counter around the sink was visibly rotten and very flexible.  The whole mess was being made to last by virtue of a lot of paint over the formica and a lot of mildewy silicone.  There was a big hole in the wall that led to the engine room.  There were also lots of random pieces of wood glued in various spots.  The previous owner was big on gluing mystery wood to random places.  Starting in the winter of 2015-16, I got disgusted enough with the galley to start to redo it.

[ralay]

This is what it looked like during/after demolition.  Actually, I had to remove that shelf in the cabinet under the sink as well. 

If I had to guess a source of the problem, I'd say it was the double sink.  The space wasn't big enough to fit a one-piece double sink.  Instead, the PO had installed two individual sinks side by side with only a 2" strip of plywood and Formica left between them.  I think the counter was weak enough to flex at this point and eventually water got in under the Formica and spread.  By the time I ripped all the Formica off, there was no trace of contact cement left - only rot and wet brown slime. 

The drain pipe in our sink was also the hardware store variety - chromed steel or something similar.  After years of being in constant electrolytic contact with the bronze through hull, it crumbled into dust the second I tried to remove the hose. 

[ralay]

(I have no idea why this photo was rotated 90 degrees upon upload)

I bought a sheet of marine plywood and some adhesive filler for epoxy and went to town.  I'm NOT much of a carpenter.  I had a table saw, skill saw, and jig saw in a parking lot.  NOTHING in the galley was square or straight, so I did my best to artfully remake something like the original. 

We opted not to reinstall the second sink and I bought a ridiculously priced, barbed, marelon drain piece to replace the crumbled one. 

[ralay]

Next came the most miserable part for two people who need to liveaboard during projects.  I ripped all the Formica off our counters and used a citrus-based adhesive remover and a cabinet scraper to remove all the old glue from the countertops.  I also did a crude fairing job with thickened epoxy.  The plastic drop cloths I taped up did little to nothing to keep the rest of our home dust free.  It was a terrible couple of days.  Throughout the whole project, we were washing our dishes in a 5 gallon bucket on the dock in the winter.  Woody was not a fan of this project and would probably have eaten out of the rotten galley forever.  I can't really blame him.

[ralay]

Internet connection is crapping out, I guess.  To be continued...

[s/v Faith]

Frog for the pictures.... (foamy grog?)...

  Look forward to the rest of it...  :)

[Cruiser2B]

You guys do great work! The new galley looks amazing, I know its not posted here yet but saw it on FB...

[Bubba the Pirate]

Good work. Can't wait to see the finale!

I have similar jigsaw puzzle obsessed PO. My galley is third or fourth project down the list, but I just bought an Eno 3 burner stove w/oven for it.

Someday, I'd like to pick your collective brains about the W32 ice box. :-)