Happy Easter!

We continue to be SO thankful for our amazing friends who have taken us in during our temporary "homelessness" due to our boat fire at the end of February. Our boat repairs are coming along...S-L-O-W-L-Y. We are still haggling with the insurance company for what they will/won't cover. That part has been very frustrating. Two steps forward, one step back. But Kirk is riding herd, keeping the heat on. We are HOPEFUL that our boat will be all repaired and back in our hands by June.

As you can see from this photo below, the bulkhead has been repaired, and is awaiting refinishing. Kirk's favorite part of the whole boat is the curved hand-hold on the edge of this bulkhead, and the boatyard did a beautiful job in replicating what was burnt.



In the mean time another frustration has been trying to choose new fabric for our salon ("living room/dining room") upholstery. In the grand scheme of everything else going on in the world right now, from missing aircraft in the Indian Ocean, to avalanches on Mt. Everest, to ongoing fighting in Syria and the Ukraine, and land-slides in Oso, Washington, and Jackson, Wyoming... trying to choose an upholstery fabric that we both like definitely falls under the category of "first world problem." Still, when it's your home, and you are going to have to look at it for the next 10-15 years, it's an important decision.

And since we have been given this opportunity to get all new upholstery, we'd like to do something new and different than the medium-blue fabric we had for years. Part of the difficulty in choosing a fabric stems from the fact that we are both "designers". Heidi is a graphic designer, and Kirk has degrees in both Architecture and Landscape Architecture. After looking at what seems like 50,000 swatch books, we have an idea in our heads of exactly what we'd like...but unfortunately it doesn't seem to exist. Or at least not in Seattle. Maybe somewhere in Miami?



We'd like something with tropical flavor and colors--turquoise, lime-green, blues--of this "Peacock" fabric swatch above, but don't care for the stripes. We'd like something with a bit of woven texture with several colors in the weave as opposed to a solid color.

Below are some more options, (displayed on a friend's boat.)



Heidi likes the lighter, tan sample best (though if we could find it in more tropical colors it would be better), knowing we can use accent colors with pillows to brighten it up. Kirk prefers the more blue/green textures, as he thinks they compliment the teak better. Meanwhile, our upholsterer sits waiting for us to make a decision so she can order the fabric, and we have exhausted our selection of available fabric swatches. So we need to pick one, this week...stay tuned.