Old looking interior, - possible to paint vinyl interior walls?

[Nor]

I’m looking at a 25 year old Fountaine Pajot for sale. The interior vinyl looks old and dirty. Is it possible to paint this kind of vinyl? Or need to tear it down and replaced it?
I guess it would be a big job to get the whole boat nice looking again, everything looks old and dirty. Can you paint the yellowish gelcoat in the shower/heads?

The wooden cabinets also needs some work as there had been termites. I assume I should first make sure they are no more, and then replace or reinforce some of the damaged wood.

[capt jgw]

There are paints made for refinishing car seats. It's the same material so those should work fine and being sat on the seats take a lot more abuse than a headliner. I've only seen it in rattle cans so it would take a lot of them to do the job. If you can find it by the gallon that would be better. Duplicolor is one source of the rattle can kind.

[Avionics_Joe]

Back 40 years ago they had paint for vinyl car roofs.

[bil56]

a latex building paint will be fine for this job ...

./.

[flightlead404]

SEM makes some spray on paints specifically for restoring old, tired plastics. I've used them with success before restoring old "royalite" aircraft interiors and on some vinyl.

[Stu Jackson]

Is that vinyl or just interior fiberglass?

[SVTatia]

Make sure termites did not affect any structural wood.

[Snore]

IMHO- before painting it, try cleaning it. When I see paint on an interior, it never look great and I wonder if there were any other 'fast fixes'.

I used Chlorox on my 40 year old Tartan overhead and it helped. But it was only when I replaced the boards and the material that it looked great.

[JPA Cate]

I understand the desire to make the boat look nice fast, but imo, you need to deal with the termites first. Depending on how badly infested it is, they can sometimes be killed in the tunnels, but just one egg not destroyed, and they're back! It may take a professional, and tenting and doing it ashore. Termite sniffer dogs do exist, but I don't know if they can show you all the holes or just indicate termite presence generally. Good luck with getting rid of them.

As to where you have the vinyl, I'd try latex based semi-gloss exterior house paint, after cleaning it well. It's possible you can clean it adequately and won't need to paint. We did that on our previous boat to this one, and it made a huge difference, went from a mottled gray to a clean white. If you're going to repaint the galley, you will need something you can wash often with grease cutting soaps, if you fry foods.

Ann