With the new sink, countertops and Force 10 range we recently installed, the rest of the galley cabinetry was looking really shabby. The sliding doors on the flatware locker, the louvered locker doors, the drawer facings and veneered surfaces on either side of the range were in bad shape and needing some varnish. Time to spruce things up a bit.
The new 3 burner Force 10 stove we installed back in January (no blog post) was approx 2 inches deeper, front to rear, than the old Hillerange unit it replaced. Although it fitted the original gimbal locations it intruded into the slide away feature for the countertop filler. We would have to come up with a solution to that problem during this project.
Here is the old range. The stove top burners worked OK but the oven temperature control was a bit vague and there was no broiler. The Admiral decreed it had to go.
Here we've started pulling things apart. Getting the sliding doors out from the flatware lockers was a challenge. Either by accident or design they wouldn't lift out the way sliders normally do. We had to remove the lower track and even then it was a fiddly job.
We knew from our experience refinishing the cabinetry in the head that prepping the louvered doors would be the biggest challenge. We had used Cetol in the head but the prep work was the same, sanding all those little louver slats is very time consuming and a real pain but......
......once again we were fortunate that one crew member had the necessary patience!
Doesn't she do good work.
Here are the sliders, before and after. Top one cleaned and sanded ready for varnish.
Here is another before and after shot of a couple of drawer facings.
We decided to use Bristol Finish two part varnish for all the trim as we had good luck with it when we refinished the cockpit table several years back. It is a two part fast build product and is extremely hard, ideal for high wear areas like the galley.
Here are the louver doors starting to look a bit better after the first two coats of Bristol. We put four coats wet-on-wet and then waited a couple of days and sanded them lightly prior to the fifth and final coat.
Same routine for the sliders and.........
.....also the drawers.
At this point we had to decide what to do with all the veneered surfaces. The lower edges of the area around the flatware locker had bad delamination damage due to water spillage on the countertop running down and laying against it. We stripped it off and began preparing for fresh veneer....then we had a brainwave!
After we installed the Bomon windows in the main cabin and started trimming the bulkhead and walls we decided to paint over the shabby veneered bulkhead to brighten things up. That was three years ago and the painted surfaces have held up well. The exterior vinyl paint we used is very durable, any nicks and dings are easily touched up and any marks wipe away with a damp cloth. Why not do the same for the cabinet facings in the galley?
Purists will probably cringe at our decision but, for us, the resulting brighter and more modern looking cabin was well worth the small sacrifice in originality. Here we have sanded and applied a blocking primer to the areas above the counter.
Here we've got some colour on and started to re-install the sliders on the flatware locker.
Here we've finished painting the facing panels on the fridge/freezer side and replaced the drawers.
Ditto the facing panels below the sinks, and the louver doors have been re-fitted.
The depth of the full size stove created an interference between the outboard louver door under the sinks and the handle on the oven door. To restore full opening of the door we cut it down by approx 4" and made the top section a fixed/removable piece.
This shot shows the shortened door opening below the oven door handle and the upper part still in place above.
This shot shows how the the upper section of the door is mounted with snap latches. It pops right off if necessary for full working access under the sinks.
In this one we have started fitting new trim molding around the edges of all the counters. Notice the 'clean off notch' we cut into the molding over the drawers. Just visible on the sink side is the 'clean off corner' of the counter where there is no trim.
Here is a close up of the notch. It will make wiping the counter a bit easier on that side.
On the home stretch here. Pretty much everything finished and starting to look a bit more like a galley again. Next we need to do something about the counter filler over the range.
Update 08-10-15
After throwing around some ideas on what a new counter filler might look like we quickly realised its size would be controlled by where it could be stored when not needed. With the bigger Force 10 range we had lost the 'slideaway' feature for the old filler so the new one would have to be easily removable, and designed so it could fit alongside or under the range, or elsewhere. Some quick measurements showed us that there was enough room under the range to fit a 22"x 18"x 1" filler.
Here is a shot showing the available space under the range, a little over two inches.
We went with half inch ply and edged it with teak channel molding. Here we are making a trial fit. The new filler will be slightly smaller than the original but it will have the advantage of moving with the range on its gimbals and providing a useable surface under way.
Here is the finished filler in place on the cooktop.
To hold the filler in place we cut four notches in the back side edge molding to engage with the two side rails of the cooktop. Here is one pair of notches.
Here is a close up of one of the notches. They are only about 1/4" deep but seem to keep the filler securely in place......at least so far........we haven't had the cap rail in the water lately!
This shot from the underside shows how the notches engage the cooktop.
Here is the filler stowed under the range. It fits in the available space quite snugly but it does restrict the movement of the range at the extreme limit of swing on the gimbals.
So, if we need to use the range while under way then we slip the filler into one of the lockers under the settee.
