Hot, humid, sunny marine weather – and everything else that continuous living aboard entails – can quickly wear out a boat's interior furnishings. In our case, the V-berth mattress had completely collapsed months ago, and the stern cabin's mattress was showing signs of significant wear. We spent the end of May and all of June correcting these issues. We got both mattresses replaced by E.J. Schrader Mattress of West Palm Beach, Florida. They sure know their business: our V-berth mattress, especially, is plush as can be — almost as good, perhaps, as was Schrader's mattress refit of John F. Kennedy's old motor yacht. We've been sleeping pretty ever since we got new mattresses, thanks to Schrader.
While Schrader was creating our new mattresses, we contracted with Ft. Pierce, Florida's, finest canvas workers at Canvas Works for a complete replacement of the saloon and nav station's 9-year-old upholstery, much of which was badly worn and chafed. Here's the "before" photo of our former forest-green corduroy-style upholstery, original to the boat:
The friendly, hard working couple at Canvas Works came highly recommended to us by local cruisers. They are in such demand that we gave them a full 7 weeks to: (1) reupholster our interior cushions with some way-cool Miami Sude fabric; (2) sew some fabric slipcovers for the new cockpit cushions we were in the process of buying; and (3) revise some design flaws in our Sunbrella-and-isinglass dodger. They accepted all our projects and got right down to work.
While we waited for the mattresses and freshly upholstered cushions to be completed, we still lived aboard and slept (and sat) upon our former, collapsed, closed-cell foam cockpit cushions. It may not sound too rough to you hardy souls, but my arthritic spine still hasn't forgiven me. Here's what belowdecks looked like for a month and a half – sort of like an explosion in a marine warehouse. While we waited for our new upholstery, I was able to score some very fancy Sunbrella fabric from which I sewed new curtains and tie-backs, so all was not at a complete standstill.
Canvas Works really came through for us – it was all fine work, every bit of it, done promptly. Check out our new saloon in that pic over there on the right. Sleek and chic. Nice curtains, too. I'd recommend Canvas Works to anyone. Just be considerate, please, and give them plenty of lead time for your project as they're always in demand and are often looking for extra, skilled canvas/upholstery workers to help them through the busy season – which for Canvas Works runs from January to December.
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