Style and decoration

The business of making drawer fronts brings up both the question of good quality woodwork and the question of interior style and decoration.

Most narrowboat interiors are finished all over with wood panelling and built-in wooden storage and furnishings. In most cases there is a very high standard of wood-fitting and finishing. The woodwork usually consists of veneered plywood trimmed with solid wood strips. Colours range from dark oak through lighter ash and very pale maple. My boat is mostly panelled with oak faced ply but has no wood trim.

However getting veneered plywood is not simple. It is very easy to get regular plywood from B&Q who will also cut large sheets into manageable, or even final sizes (provided you are content with rectangles). But they don’t sell oak faced ply or oak timber. I have located a supplier of oak faced ply near Northampton (which is about 15 miles away), but they only supply whole sheets. And I have found a supplier of oak (and other good wood) near Weedon which is on the way to Northampton. However they only stock rough boards and cut and plane strips to order.

Part of the problem is that I am not good at detailed planning for the timber I need, nor do I have the space to store large quantities of timber. The marina has a workshop and is quite willing to cut plywood sheets for me if I get them delivered. But it would be expensive to get sheets delivered one or two at a time. And even then there would be a time-lag between ordering and delivery which I am not good at dealing with.

The other part of the problem is that I have not decided what I want to do, and I’m not sure exactly how to achieve a good finish. Which brings me back to the leopard pattern seat covers. They have a nice hint of art-deco and that has got me wondering whether I actually want to develop all the unfinished parts of the boat in wood. Perhaps paint and wallpaper would be more interesting. It’s a long time since I looked at wallpaper and the local Focus hardware store has some spectacular designs that could make great feature panels. One roll would go a very long way.

Due to all this design uncertainty I have decided for now to develop the various woodwork items using B&Q plywood. At a later stage it would not be that wasteful to rebuild the items with oak faced plywood, or to cover them with an additional layer of oak faced ply. (Oak veneer sheets seem to be just as expensive as oak faced plywood, so gluing veneer to the plain plywood is not a realistic option.)