M/Y Shangri-La Renovation Project: Entertainment control center

Introduction

The Shangri-La was built in 1960 by the Roamer Steel Boat Division of the Chris-Craft Corporation in Holland, Michigan. But the years have been hard on the Shangri-La and it's time to completely rebuild and refurbish the ol' girl. So starting in August 2008, the Shangri-La will be hauled from the water, as we do each year, and we will start a complete renovation.

We expect this renovation project to be completed over a course of 3 to 5 years during the spring and summer months costing $20,000 to $30,000. Items in RED have been completed.

Phase 1: Rebuild cabin sides and fronts with cutouts for aluminum framed windows with tinted tempered glass with sliders in the 4 cabin corners; remove vinyl canvas covering cabin top and fiberglass.

Phase 2: Remodel cabin interior by adding a shower enclosure, new cabin sole, cabin ceiling, apartment size refrigerator, build cabinet with drawers for clothing storage, refinish walls, cabinets and bulkheads with varnish wood, install a jack knife sofa where the bunk beds used to be, replace the V-birth mattress and completely rewire the boat.

Phase 3: Replace cockpit windows, remove vinyl canvas covering hard top and fiberglass, refinish cockpit woodwork, replace deck covering.

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Sunday, May 22, 2011

Entertainment control center

Things have started very slow this year working on the boat. The past week though I have managed to create and install the built-in entertainment control center into the starboard forward bulkhead.

Holes were cut through the bulkhead so each component is flush mounted through the bulkhead while securely mounted on shelving built inside the starboard hanging locker. The components include from top to bottom, a DVD/VHS recorder-player, a 12 CD disc changer, an AM/FM/SIRUS-XM/iPod radio control head, a disc changer control head, a DirecTV receiver, a 2-TV video distribution box/antenna amplifier, and an impedance matching speaker zone distribution box. The placement on the forward bulkhead was considered to allow using IR remote controls while sitting on the rear deck or by bouncing the IR signal off a mirror on the gangway door while laying in the v-birth.

Also included in this installation are speaker volume controls so each pair of speakers in four separate zones on the boat can be adjusted or turned off from that area of the boat. The speaker zones are the v-birth, the salon, the rear deck, and a pair of wakeboard tower speakers that will be mounted on the satellite TV dome arch above the hardtop.

For those actually following this blog, it does start to look like I'm building a UMC, ultimate man cave.