Small World is an old boat. She has that charm that only comes from old stuff. Lots of pretty wood varnished to high heaven. The sole is the nicest hardwood floors I’ve ever lived on. It definitely helps make the boat feel homey. Over the years I encountered boats with carpet on them and thought “why the hell would you have carpet on a boat?” In fact, some friends who had carpet on a boat also had mushrooms growing on the carpet because it is damn near impossible to keep a boat completely dry, especially in the Pacific Northwest. You can imagine my confusion then, when Craig said, “check my math to see if I am ordering the right amount of carpet…. And let me know which color to order.” Of course I let him know that anything over zero square feet was far too much. Some other friends had to replace carpet after a poopsplosion from toilet plumbing. Why would I want to complicate things with carpet?!Well. Apparently hard wood floors can be quite dangerous at sea. A little bit of salt water on the sole and one wrong step could be quite the ride. Spill some oil in the galley and you could be losing your footing and trying to grab a red hot frying pan on a gimbaled stove to stabilize yourself. Not pretty pictures. And since I’m pain averse, I said grey carpet. Because duh. Grey is the best color. I am officially a Seattleite. 

During the last few weeks before heading out, several friends came to help with various projects. Josh, Anna, and Molly helped with measuring and cutting the carpet squares. The prep work was not fun and was way more challenging than I anticipated. Josh and I made templates of the floor spaces with some huge pieces of paper. Then Anna, Molly, and I took the templates and transferred them to the carpet squares. The carpet squares are supposed to be heavy duty I guess? So to cut them, you have to cut through the rubber bottom, and the brillo pad top. We went through several exacto knife blades in the process and accidentally made the mirror image of the pattern needed. To say that I hated the carpet project is a gross understatement. 

There wasn’t time to start the installation of all of the cutouts, so they were labelled and packaged and temporarily stowed on one of the bunks. Specifically, the top bunk that can sleep two people. Which is important because this coming Friday, two people are going to be joining us on the boat for the weekend. Today was the day I dreaded. The day we started to install the carpet. All for Leah and Brian. 

Goodbye beautiful hardwood floors. Hello harsh ugly utilitarian carpet. You’d better be safe AF. 

See?! Bunk cleared and ready for friends!!