This week I am finally exchanging that roof over my head for the keel under my feet. I’m moving on a houseboat. And this one is a boat, not a floating home.
I’ve been talking about this almost as long as I’ve been writing this blog. Finally I’ve found a place and I am moving in. Some of my stuff is already there.
Tomorrow I will move some more, including my bedding and I will spend my first night on a boat since I left the yacht “Momo” seven years ago, which I lived on when sailing around the Fijian Islands.
In a way, I suppose, I’ve been waiting to return to living aboard since I first developed a taste for it. I was just not aware of that until I found out that it isn’t too uncommon in London, with the Thames and all the canals, to live on water.
There are about 15,000 houseboats and floating homes in the UK, a large number of those in Greater London, and 30,000 to 50,000 people living on them.
Those were the numbers two years ago.
I’ve found a UK website for a small company that builds Narrow Boats and Barges (Dutch style) and I’ve started to work on my own design ideas. It’ll be a Barge and it’ll have an engine, because I’m going to want to be able to move it, across the channel at that.
The size will really depend on my budget, but the minimum that I have figured out, will have to be 15m in length and 4m width. That’s 49ft length and a little over 13ft width for those Americans among you and everyone else, who prefers the Imperial measurements.
What I have in mind would be somewhat compact, but definitely comfortable and there would be room for two bedrooms, two shower rooms and a comfortable open plan living area and galley. The wheelhouse would double as my office and there would be deck space front and back available.
Needless to say a longer boat would offer more usable space.
Curiously I have so far been unable to decide on the interior design. I like modern, but not the steel, acrylic and glass kind of modern.
More along the lines of comfy and cozy and I don’t want to make it look like any old flat, but retain the boat character.
Alright, alright, that’s getting rather detailed. Considering that I have no money yet to pay for any of this anyway, I may be getting a little ahead of myself.
But one can dream.
It won’t be a dream forever, either. I know precisely what I want and it will become a reality.
I am one step closer to that. I will let you know what it is going to be like living on board.
So, watch this space.
Or not. Up to you.
2clouds 