Houseboats from around the World

These houseboats are in Hong Kong. Not sure I would like to be so close to my neighbours!

An Indian houseboat. Love the roof terrace!

The interior of a houseboat in Thailand. Now, that is what you call grandiose.

Carpe Diem

This is Carpe Diem, our 38ft Ferro Cement yacht. Pete bought the hull and decks and fitted everything else himself. He even went and picked out the douglas fir that he wanted for the mast and boom. We have sailed her everywhere and she has always looked after us. Inside there is a lot of wood, making the boat look very traditional. When she is moored up in a harbour, we always have people stopping to admire and ask questions. However, this year Carpe Diem will staying in her winter mud berth whilst we concentrate on the barge. We will do a bit of general maintenance work and perhaps stay the odd night on her, but if we want to get away and go sailing it will have to be on friends' boats. I just hope that she doesn't end up feeling unloved!

Designer Boats

Now I have aspirations for a designer barge like Pia's barge in Amsterdam. What I would like to know is, how does she keep it looking like that? I find that dog, kids and husband (him especially!) soon puts paid to any cleaning or tidying up. But would I be without them....on reflection, no. I'll just put off having a designer barge and go for the 'lived in' look.

Mind you, love the porthole!

Snow stops play!

Okay, so here comes the snow again and the temperature has dropped. Work on forepeak has temporarily stopped. We have decided over the last couple of days that the head height in the bedroom is fine for me and Pete, so therefore we will not be raising the roof here! This means that we can get on with the bedroom until the weather improves enough to take the rest of the roof off. So Pete is playing with his needle gun again. Mind you, I have already done most of it with a hammer and chisel!






Some more pictures of Anita C. As you can see, she is totally opposite to the minimalism of the Shirecliffe. There are some more lovely pictures and an interesting article about Anita C at www.wealdentimes.co.uk/house/wt84_Welcome-aboard...-.asp

More Inspiration!

We have been busy all weekend, but there are only so many pictures of the new hatchways that I can show you. So next week I will post the pictures of the newly painted office. But for now here are some pictures of the Humber Keel, Shirecliffe, which was recently sold. I love this barge and intend to blatently copy some of the features such as gardenia paint with the wood, rayburn, retro fridge etc. But where is all their stuff?!!!!

Inspiration

I spend quite a lot of my evenings looking at barges for sale on the web (television is so rubbishy, not worth watching!). I am always looking for inspiration and good ideas. I thought I would share these pictures that have something I just like or want to copy.

For example, look at the beautiful decks on Swarte Schaep. The wood has taken on such glorious colours. You can tell that this is a well loved boat.

(www.apolloduck.net/131464)

I like these glass doors at the rear of Kismet. I can just imagine looking out over the marshes on a lovely sunny evening, watching the sun go down. (http://www.rugbyboats.co.uk/)

This mirror is over the bath on Anita C. The whole boat has a wonderfully colourful theme running thoughout with some lovely original touches and some beautiful indian wall hangings. Worth having a look. (http://www.boatconnection.co.uk/)

Two Hatches

Now we have two hatches!

This weekend's job is to make temporary wooden hatches. Once the forepeak is watertight we can then paint it and start putting in the floor and batons. Then we move to the very back and start on the utility room and pantry. We are concentrating on these two areas as we have to wait until the weather improves before we can cut the roof off the main living areas. Oh, for days of sunshine and warmth!