Sunday 8 July 2012

What we chiefly need now are pictures, so I won't disappoint.  The following ones are how we saw it on Thursday 28th June '12, indoors still, when it was due to be completed and we were due to pay our final large payment (apart from the Extras and the 'Sea' or rather river trial following delivery).  We deemed it completed.  The poor guys at the sharp end had laboured to 9pm and returned to complete and tidy from 5am, so we could see it at its best, and we did!:
Okay, so it's just a bedroom with some nice Tiffany style lights, but it's cosy, even with the plastic cover on the king size mattress!  So, turning around and around the corner takes us into the corridoor:



Nice feeling of anticipation?  Well, good, so enter the saloon and look back at this point, you see:

What a lovely view, gorgeous rich wood grain, corner stove & fireplace, elegant & marine-style bookcases with golden grills and yet very light and airy (not so obvious here, but we are in the construction hanger still!)
Then behind me is the galley:

The partition you see is demountable, the wall light has a decorate opaque glass in a box on the shelf to the left, and the wooden kitchen surface has yet to be toned down using Danish Oil.  Even so, it's very pretty.  Another view? (I know people like kitchens!) Okay:


Even the stainless microwave, and fridge/freezer, and gas cooker (full size, under the glass cover on the right) all blend in and reflect the wood colours everywhere.  There's masses of cupboard and especially drawer space.  One cupboard has plumbing & electrics for a dishwasher, wait a minute, this sounds like a brochure.  It's not for sale, and I'm not on commission.  And you can't copy our boat!  I know plageurism is the greatest form of compliment, but we want Archangel to be unique.  Oh well, so long as you don't tell us or go to the same marina.
But why do you want to see the smallest rooms now?  Oh well, here goes.  The shower on the left and the basin & usual utility on the right are the main bathroom.  The other one (en suite off the main bedroom) is lovely too, but rather small to photograph well!  Use your imagination.  It's like the usual one apart from also having a lovely porthole in, which has to open upwards for obvious reasons.  Lukily it has a poweful extract fan so opening the window should be scarcely of value, and also luckily the windows are very still on their hinges so it stays up without danger of coming down and braining the occupant!
There's also a small bedroom or side cabin:

Also hard to picture, and the lamp is missing its glass funnel and brass cowl, which make it far more elegant.  There's a wardrobe and drawers on the right, oh, all right:


So this is a sitting room, with a bed that pulls out to a small double.  I forgot this visit to open it up, but the bifold doors behind me make it form part of the saloon.  Next time I'll show you.  That's enough for this entry, of pictures.   We returned home thrilled and very happy, barely able to wait for the rather bizarre experience of staying 'aboard' for the weekend (Sat & Sun nights) Archangel while 'moored' in the boatbuilder's yard!  This gave us the chance to find anything we wanted adding, fixing or ask questions on any equipment we'd managed to use (not the engine, navigation, generator or aircon!).  We only had a list of about 2 dozen, and some of those were just our misunderstanding and others were easily fixed.  Only two remain as I write, and these are promised in a fortnight.  We took delivery on Tuesday 4th July as planned, and have been aboard since on Sat & Sunday, loading it with clothes, furnishings, clocks, and other essentials.  Lots more to do, but mustn't make it cluttered.  Next blog will show her on the trailer leaving and then arriving, but it's late and lazing in the sun (and rain), eating and drinking, well it takes it out of you!