Storage on a small sailboat is limited and though our boat has a lot more storage than some, I can envision the day when we run out of storage space. Rich and I sold, donated, gave away and threw away the majority of stuff we’d accumulated over the 18 years we’ve been together before moving aboard. But one thing I wanted to avoid was turning our floating home into a camping adventure with little pots and pans so we decided to keep our normal sized pots, pans, dishes, utensils, etc. Thus far, with a little creativity and by modifying some lockers we’ve been able to find a spot on the boat for everything we decided to keep.
As with most boats, some of the lockers are poorly designed. Luckily, Rich knows things about woodworking. This past week he built a shelf under the countertop next to the sink. This area used to be a small trash can and was a huge waste of space. Now it’s a cavernous area for more stuff. I spent the morning trying to figure out what to put in it. The dish rack is usually sitting on the hatch to the locker so we have to store stuff we don’t use all the time otherwise it’s going to be a real pain moving the dish rack all the time, especially in the middle of cooking. I decided to try some long-term food storage; things we only use occasionally and things we can get access to before we start cooking like canned foods, flour, chicken stock, etc. I couldn’t believe the amount of stuff I was able to fit in there. I cleaned out an entire locker in the salon and now I have a more accessible place to store the juicer and dish towels, which freed up a one of the large drawers under the settee.
Rich also built a shelf in the locker under the stove. This area was just a slanted void where we tried to store baking pans, oven mitts, trivets, etc., but everything would just slide toward the locker door and then it wouldn’t shut. The arrangement didn’t bother me that much, but it really bothered Rich. Occasionally I would hear him banging the pans around as he tried to find the one he wanted. He was really loud and annoying about it, so he built a flat shelf in it and now the pans sit perfectly. He really does have mad skills.