The finished stateroom
We finally have put our room back together. Welcome aboard Empire. The grand reveal of our master stateroom.
Meet Empire, our 74' Hatteras
This is our 74' Hatteras we named Empire.
Out with the 30-year-old carpet
All right. So, on to the master stateroom. We haven't given a tour of this room yet, but we will. Um, but just to talk real quick about what's going on in here. So, this had a lot of the old gross carpet. Trish and I have taken up all the old carpet, all the old padding, including what's in this closet, and we're going to put brand new carpet padding down in here. It's actually amazing what a difference it makes just smellwise when all the old carpet's gone. It went from a kind of a mechanical engine room smell all the time to I don't really smell anything right now. It smells great. So,
Hidden hatches under the carpet
um, one of the things that we uncovered in pulling up all the carpet and padding down here is we had four hatches that we had no idea existed. There's actually been several cases where I've actually wanted to access down here, but I didn't know they they existed. in with the carpet and the padding covering them up. Um you wouldn't, you know, normally just start tearing that up just to see if there's a hatch there. But one of the things that we're doing when we put new carpet down is actually making these hatches permanently accessible. That way if we ever need to see if there's water down there, replace a freshwater line, do any kind of work where lines or cables are moving back, um we can access all that. So it's great. So, if you own a boat, never ever ever cover these up. So, they're not accessible. They're worth They're very valuable to keep as is. And as you can see, this is uh the very back of the boat. And this particular is fiberglass. So, because right underneath us is where the two shafts for the engines come out. The propellers are about where Trish was standing. So when we pulled that up, we never want to get let moisture get down into fiberglass that never yields a great result. So um what Trish did was we used Marine-Tex which is a really hard epoxy and she
Sealing the fiberglass with Marine-Tex
actually went through and filled them all in. So over time as as the boat gets used or whatnot and time goes by uh no moisture can get down inside the fiberglass. It's completely sealed.
The grand reveal
Good afternoon and welcome aboard Empire for almost the grand reveal of our master stateroom that has just been completed today with new carpet. We are so excited. So part of the um process of restoring our 74 ft Hatteras from 1998 was pulling up the old carpet and lo and behold, we found hatches. Um, our carpet layers did a fantastic job fitting them in. They're really tight. They don't wobble. And they just got done today. They did. They just got done with the master stateroom today. They are finishing up forward, but we finally have put our room back together. So, we've got a nice looking bed. Um, we have a few things that are still out, but for the most part, she is ready to go. In our bathroom, we replaced all of the old halogens that were in
New LED lighting in the head
the lights. We um replaced them with com I want to say compliant, but that's not the right word. I'm going to say the correct LEDs. We did have a a different type of LED bulb. It was like the candy cane or candy candy corn looking bulb. And these are the disc bulbs. And a and I guess with Hatteras you'd have to have a specific bulb are the candy corn bulbs like to short out um prematurely. So and our friend who is a expert on everything electrical on these boats, his name's Les. He's probably the most knowledgeable guy on all the electrical stuff on these older boats. Um basically said the other ones were unsafe and these ones were the best ones to use. So, um, we'll keep the old ones as spares, but they are brighter. Um, they're a disc. They have six LEDs in there, and they just looks more modern, I think. And what's really interesting about these is these came from Apollo Lighting, and Apollo actually makes these so that they are compat compatible with Hatteras. And then another fun thing in our shower, for the first time in 2 and 1/2 years, this
The shower light works again
light actually works. So, um, we actually had to install a brand new fixture with this one. Um, a lot of the parts that we get for the Hatteras we get from Sam's Marine. And I got the last two. They were a bit pricey. So, I'm glad I got the last two. Um, no more taking a shower in the dark, huh? Well, I mean, I don't know. It could be.
The other side and the spa tub
So, this other side. Yeah. Well, this other side is a a direct mirror of this side that we're standing on. And um as you can see, the one thing that's a little bit weird is if one of you are going to the bathroom in the morning um and you're sitting there or standing there, you can just look across and see the other person. But we also did the same thing on that side. We replaced all of the LEDs. And um we still have a few tiny projects in here. Like this pump right here was not working because this is um a spa tub. We're not big bath people at all. So we'll probably never use it. But um I am a little bit OCD about things that should be working working. So um I do have I found a guy that basically builds these still 30 years later. So um I'm not looking forward to seeing that work. And then what do we We're thinking
Headboard plans and a mystery outlet
about changing this out. Taking this off al together. It's a little bit outdated. James doesn't like the design of it, but we're um thinking about going with a headboard and some shelves so that we can put our electronic devices and have them charge while we're sleeping and set some books up here. Um we both like to read at night and fun and actually fun fact that we just found today. Um, so we have four compartments underneath this mattress to the build. Um, two of them are to the AC's and we actually found an electrical outlet with a plug. So, I'm looking forward to finding out where that goes, how you turn that on, why it's there. Um, we may be able to plug u pull directly from that for our electronic device charging. So, um, that's a project that we're thinking about um, will come in the future. And then the last project that we have, let's go over the other side and show them. It's easier to see.
Next up: tinted windows
The last project for this room is replacing these um plastic windows with a plexiglass, a modern plexiglass with ceramic tint in there. That way we like natural light. So, with the ceramic tint and the modern plexiglass, cuz as Trish said, this is not a very thick plastic at all. Um, and it's 30 years old, I'd be worried about in rough conditions, it possibly breaking and that would be a lot of water back here. So, I think we're 90% done. Um, and as you'll see in previous videos, where we started was a lot rougher than it is right now. Mhm. So, I would say one of the fun things about this room is
The TV cabinet surprise
if it works. Oh, no, it doesn't. Oh, yes it does. is we have this lovely TV cabinet. So, we're we're always finding neat things on the boat. Um, last weekend, James came to replace the
Hunting down the hidden fuse box
LED light bulbs. I can't get it close now. Uh-oh, we broke it. No, we didn't. It's just the cord stuck there. All right. Last weekend, James came to the boat to replace some LED bulbs in the bathroom and in the master stateroom. He did not get to the stateroom because he had some issues with the master head. And one side had shorted out completely. He spent about 4 hours trying to find the transformer boxes cuz on Hatteras they all go to a relay and in these relay boxes is a transformer and a fuse. So, he was tearing the boat apart left and right trying to find the fuse for the lights in the master stateroom and lo and behold, went home, looked up looked it up online, and it's actually out in the stairwell. Yeah, that's right. Cuz according to the ship's diagrams, we have pretty detailed diagrams of where things are supposed to be on this boat. According to those diagrams, it's actually supposed to be right behind this wall. but that goes from an engine and there's a big exhaust that goes all the way out the back. So, it was not there and that was not fun tearing all that stuff back or tearing that stuff out and putting it back together. But what we discovered, maybe somebody else will find this useful, the fuse box for all the stuff on um the DC side, is actually behind this cabinet. And it's there's four screws that hold it in. the door pops off and so this whole cabinet comes out and the transformer sits right right after it. There's two sets of them right there. So, um and they require fuses that we didn't have, but nonetheless, it's good to know that that's there because that controls a lot of things upstairs and some of the things in in the bedroom. There's another box on the other side that um controls some things. Thanks for watching our video. We hope to see you guys next time.
