When people first come onto our boat they usually stop and look at our headliner (that’s the ceiling for you non-boaty types). It looks like beadboard but is a single piece of something that extends the width of the boat. We’re not sure what it’s made of and neither is anyone else who comes aboard. Whatever it is, it gets lots of compliments!
Recently we had about-to-take-the-plunge-to-liveaboard friends over for dinner. The conversation turned to our headliner and I was horrified to discover that I could see streaks after our friend touched it. Gross. Also not a great testament to my house/boatcleaning skills.
When I looked closely at the headliner I realized that it was absolutely filthy. I could see where people had touched it because there were darker fingerprinty smudges in places. Apparently the combination of all the cooking I’ve been doing, keeping everything enclosed in plastic, and candle smoke make a sticky, sooty mess. Neat. To get all the gunk off I had to use a scrubby sponge, hot water, good old Murphy’s Oil Soap, and a lot of elbow grease.
Each little groove had to be wiped out individually and I used an old toothbrush to scrub out the edges at the ribs. The hard work was worth it, though. It shines like crazy now!
Unfortunately the last time the wood was varnished a good deal of it got onto the headliner in places. I haven’t tackled removing that yet; anyone know how to get 15 year old varnish off an unknown material without damaging it?
Sailing Devilfish 