Decorating Our Sailboat With Cheap & Cheerful Pictures

I think most of you know that I live on a sailboat, a Moody 346 called Tickety Boo. Some of you are new around here, so just in case you weren't aware - yes, I'm one of those oddballs who lives in a tiny floating house.

Because our sailboat is our home, I wanted to do some decorating to make it, well, more like a home. A while back, I made slipcovers and throw pillows for our settees, but we had these blank walls which needed some sort of pizazz. But, because we live on a tight budget, I needed to fine a cheap and cheerful way to make our saloon more homey.

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You know what, let's have an interesting, albeit random aside about the English language. Don't worry, we'll get back to boat decoration in just a minute.

Do you know that folks who speak British English use the term "homely" when they want to describe a cozy and comfortable home? I used to be so perplexed when I lived in Scotland and New Zealand and people talked about redecorating to make their place more homely. As an American, I wondered why they wanted to make their place ugly. Because that's what "homely" means in Americano - something that's not so easy on the eyes.

As an American, I'm going to have to go with the word "homey" rather than "homely" when it comes to decorating our boat. But, because I learned about sailing and boats in New Zealand, I do call our "living room" a "saloon," which is the British term, instead of a "salon," which is the American term. I'm all about contradictions and inconsistencies. Sorry about that.

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Okay, let's get back to it. I think we were talking about blank walls. We've got one wall in our saloon which runs across the forward section and a smaller wall over our chart table. Here's a picture of the layout of our boat so that you know what I'm talking about.

Source: Sailboat Data

I spent some time staring at the blank walls. I could have gone with some large pictures on each of them, but what if I got bored looking at the same pictures day in and day out? What if I chose poorly and spent lots of money getting large frames and pictures to go in them?

I decided to go with lots of small frames so that they would be easy to change out. The previous owner had a few small frames hanging on the walls, but they weren't exactly to our taste. That's the great thing about taste - everyone's is different. So, I left the old frames on the free table at our marina, somebody took them and now they're happily decorating their boat.

I went with cheap and cheerful plain, black frames from Walmart (around $2 for a 4x6" frame, even cheaper on sale) and got prints made from some of Scott's photos at Walgreens (around 12 cents for a 4x6" print). I did get a few 5x7" frames and prints as well, but only a few as the frames and prints are more expensive.

The first order of business was to figure out where I was going to place them on the wall. I cut out paper the same size as the picture frames and taped them up until I got a pattern that worked. Then I used Command picture hanging strips to attach the frames to the wall. I've seen a lot of people mention that they use these on their boats. I have to say they're pretty awesome. They're basically some sort of velcro material which stick to the wall and frame and lock together when you press the frame on the wall. They're supposed to not damage your wall when you remove them, and I did test this out when I wasn't happy with the placement of some of my frames. No damage - yippee!

Once I was happy with the arrangement, I started putting photos in frames and sticking pictures on the walls. The table in our saloon serves many purposes. Not only does it hide bottles of booze inside a compartment in the middle, my sewing machine sits on it, it's my eating area and it's also a handy-dandy crafting space for trying to figure out what pictures look best next to each other.

Here's what they look like on the forward wall. Apologies for the quality of the pictures, but I use my cell phone to take them. This ain't no glossy decorating magazine here. You can't really see the photos, but they're from our travels - some are of National Parks in the States, some are of interesting looking people in Tahiti, New Zealand and New Orleans, some are from our travels in the States and Europe and there's one of a rooster for no apparent reason.

On yet another random side note, notice one of the vents on the ceiling has light coming through and one doesn't? I bought the wrong replacement and had it shipped over from England. Way too expensive to ship back and return, so we're stuck with it.

Here's what the pictures look like on the aft wall over the chart table. {John and Joan - if you're reading this, yes, that's a picture of an old oil test well in North Dakota from those old post cards.}

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. Now I can sit on the settees and reminisce about all of the wonderful places we've traveled to and the interesting people we've met along the way.

What are your favorite home decorating tips and tricks?

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