My weekend..And I need YOUR help!

Bit of a mixed bag this weekend. Didn't really get the time I would have liked down the boat, but at least some progress was made. Yesterday, I managed to get a second coat of white paint on the kitchen unit. Here they are:

Then I started sanding down the cockpit locker lids that I had epoxied the week before. As I had brushed the epoxy on, they looked absolutely dreadful as the epoxy was so uneven with high spots all over it. I decided the only choice I had was to sand them down and give them a more even coat of epoxy with a roller. I sanded them down and was left with this:

After one uniform coat of epoxy, they looked much better. I forgot to take a pic, but you will see this next week before I start painting.

Solas has a small dining table aboard sits on a steel or aluminium pedestal. I have never been able to undo the pedestal from the base, so resolved to get the two apart by unscrewing the base from the floor and working on it outside where I can apply heat and force. I was staggered to see how filthy it was under there. It even beats the place where the oven was removed! Check this out:

The pedestal. Now see what the space underneath looks like:

and the pedestal base itself:

See what I mean? Have you ever seen anything so disgusting? Annoyingly, I didn't dare to clean the area in case any of the dirt splashed onto the kitchen units where the paint was still slightly tacky, so I screwed it back down. This will have to wait for another day.

I then turned my attention to the door that was on the kitchen units. It looks horrible with many coats of a beige brown paint  and very dirty. I thought I would sand it a bit and see what the wood underneath looked like. Here it is before I started:

And here it is after about 15 minutes sanding:

Quite a difference! I dug out some old varnish I had and soaked it in a sink full of hot water to make it easier to apply. I didn't have any white spirit, so wanted to give the wood a chance to absorb the varnish. I am quite stunned by the result of the first coat:

Looks great doesn't it? It has got me wondering what the kitchen units may really look like underneath all that paint. Me putting another 2 coats on may not have helped!

OK, so I hope you have enjoyed what I got up to this weekend. Now I would really like your help. There is a discrepancy between the page views reported back to me. Google stats says I get far more views than the page stats report (my last blog page only got 2 views according to the stats). As it usually takes me at least an hour to type the content and upload my pics, it doesn't seem a good use of my time if only 2 people are reading. So I am in 2 minds whether or not just to stop doing this altogether.

What I would like is for you to PLEASE leave a comment below. It doesn't have to be long, even one word to say you read my blog would be fine! Then I would know that continuing this is worthwhile.

Thanks very much and more to follow (maybe!).

Actually, I will at least report how many comments I had!

Bye for now....