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Life on a houseboat - a home report

Life in a houseboat, what is it really like? We offer a home report from our house, in the houseboat where we live. Recently, we have cleaned up, fixed and bought some new furnishings, so we have some new things to show you as well.

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Life in a houseboat

Life in a houseboat is different, but it has many similarities with living in a house. What is special is that it always rocks a bit, you feel the wind and you are surrounded by an environment of boats and seabirds.

I the marina where we live there are 40 houseboats, of which 25 are floating villas and the other 15 are various types of boats and barges. You own your boat and rent the site. All have municipal water and sewerage, via pipes running under the piers.

We have lived here for ten years, and we usually tell stories and show pictures from time to time. Now we have just cleaned up and fixed some new things, so now it's time for a home report again. Welcome to peek into our houseboat, via text and pictures!

Our houseboat FREEDOM in the foreground, and some houseboat neighbours in the background

Welcome to the hall!

Welcome to our hallway! Our hallway is really not big, but it works. Now we have a new hallway carpet, because the old one was so worn and boring. Suddenly it feels much nicer and more cosy!

The kitchen - on the middle deck

From the hallway you go straight into the kitchen. Our kitchen is also quite small, which is especially noticeable because we have limited cupboards. It's just a matter of adapting - we've cleared out a lot of stuff and put bowls within bowls in the cupboards...

One of the best things about the kitchen is the view. Boats chug by, and sometimes swans or ducks swim right outside the window. When we make breakfast in the morning, there's usually a heron on the jetty opposite.

In the kitchen I (Helena) have my workplace. We have installed compartments on the wall, where I can keep pads, pens and other things, which makes things much easier.

The bathroom - on the middle deck

Our bathroom is next to the hallway and kitchen. It's so small that we can't even install a shower cubicle. But we have a shower, with shower curtains. So yes, we have everything we need. On the window we have a film that allows you to see out, but not in.

Living room - on the upper deck

If you go up half a flight of stairs from the kitchen, you come to our living room, on the upper deck. We built this part of the houseboat ourselves, when we rebuilt the houseboat ten years ago. Just recently we got a new sofa bed here. The old one, which was beige, was both worn and impossible to clean. Now we got a grey one instead, from Ikea. We are very satisfied!

From the living room we have a balcony door to the foredeck, where we have our outdoor furniture. Here we often have a view of beautiful red sunsets.

In the living room, Peter has his study area. We recently bought a new light grey carpet here, which makes it feel a bit more cosy. What about the fireplace? Yes, we sometimes use it when it's cold. Then it becomes both cosy and super warm.

The bedroom - on the lower deck

If we instead go from the kitchen and down the narrow little staircase, we come down to the lower deck. This is perhaps the largest room, although the ceiling height is a little lower than standard. Here we have a bedroom and an exercise room. Yes, we run training programmes on the TV and work out on the carpet!

At the far end, there is a small door to a cold store in the bow. We put the panelling on the walls ourselves when we renovated ten years ago.

At the other end of the bedroom we have a kind of open wardrobe, with hangers, a chest of drawers and boxes of clothes.

The boiler room / cloakroom

From the large room on the lower deck you can go into the boiler room, which was once an engine room. Today there are no boat engines left. In the boiler room we have a boiler, washing machine, shoe racks and boxes for storage. The washing machine is new, as the old one broke down. In here it is (for most people) not standing height ...

This is life in a houseboat ...

Yes, this is what life can be like in a houseboat... Very cosy, we think! What would a report on your home look like?

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