Water Baby

The reason for the house addition became quite obvious several months after I began. I did not know it at the time but apparently, I was nesting.
Take a look at what my newly added sewing studio loft turned out to be. Some kind of nursery.... the little water-baby never slept there but it was nice to have room for his stuff.

I don't have many after pictures of the inside of the boathouse and those I do have include a picture of the baby as well. This is the food prep/baby bathing area... The ladder leads to the loft above. One side was the baby's room and the other was the sleeping loft. Notice the upper walls/ceiling are unbleached cotton muslin sewn together and stapled to the rafters. This was done to keep the total weight down. No heavy drywall here. Probably not up to the standard building code, especially with the wood stove, but code? what code?



















Here is the boy looking out the back window. Soon the time came to move to dry land. I worried about the baby starting to walk and I wanted him to have a safe outside play area. So two years after adding the addition I sold the boathouse and bought a house in town.
The time living on the river was magical. The cheap cost of living made it possible for me to spend more time at home with my baby. He survived. He did not fall in the river as many people warned me he would. And he did not get his head caught in that accordian style baby gate!! Can you guess what his first word was?? "da"- for DUCK



















NOTICE: Objects in the viewfinder are closer than they appear.

An Artist's Rendition

When the loft addition to the boathouse was finished, I commissioned a local artist to do a painting of it.


It was a real stretch to come up with the money to pay for it but I have never regretted it.

Before....

The Island

A local free paper ran an article about the boathouse community and I thought I would include a bit here: The article is not by-lined so I do not know who to credit it to... excerpt from the Monthly Journal of Mutual-Aid July 2008 ( but the pictures are mine)



"A closer look at the island, perhaps from the top of the Wagon Bridge, will reveal dozens of unusual homes floating along its northern shore. These are not merely boat garages, used for storage and weekend recreation, but homes to a "hearty" breed....To some they constitute a counter culture or a novel throwback to the 60s. Others consider them outlaws and a nuisance.














Many choose not to have a car, most have no electricity, phone, or plumbing. They haul out what they haul in, and they are always hauling. They cope with nature's wild mood swings with firewood and ropes. A handful of times a year, they can only get home by canoe or wading through frigid water..














...And while life on the river seemed quaint and serene, the residents were toughening up with the endless chores of hauling wood, water, and waste. There was always a day-to-day grind enhanced by freezing and flooding, and each resident found that the simple life was a grueling as it was rewarding. It was not easy."

Its me!!! An unidentified woman!!

Boathouse loft addition

More about the loft addition... I finished the roof sheathing and some of the roofing. I used rolled roofing to save on weight. That is an important consideration when constructing a boathouse- weight and balance. I needed to keep the house balanced from front to back and left to right. I needed to be careful not to add more weight than the barrels supporting the house could hold. That floating platform in the lower right of the first picture actually attached to the back of the boathouse. It attached with hinges and was not very stable. When boats went by it flapped up and down. But it did give me a nice area in the back.

I used salvaged windows in the loft. There was also a skylight on the roof. The window on the back was a 16 pane window that came from a building at the state university in town. I also built a small deck outside of the window. The window was on a piano hinge on top and it swung out for access to the upper deck. I did not use this deck much as it was not very convenient. The window was not very practical for air flow and I had to make a big screen in order to keep the mosquitos and fish flies out.
Living in the boathouse was wonderful but it took constant supervision. Winds could be troublesome. The house would sway back and forth. The river would get rough and the house would bounce up and down and some times that might cause a barrel to pop out. One side would be lower and that would raise the otherside and put the barrels at risk of popping out. The barrels held the house up and the wieght of the house kept the barrels in place.
During the time I lived there I was working at a knitting mill on the east end of town. The factory was right next to the river (well, the whole town is). I could see the river from my office window and there were many stormy days that I kept my eye on the river and hoped that I did not see my house go by. The red house next to mine broke loose once. Luckily someone saw it an jumped in a boat and was able to tow it back to its spot.

Boathouse pictures

I found some more "before" pictures to post:

This shows the flood that occured the second year I lived there. Remember the h0use rises with the water.

One inside view of the house.

The cooking/eating corner. A very small living space. These pictures are over 20 years old. Eek, I'm old...

The view from the river. Some of the boathouses were in rough shape. Most pictured here were inhabited year round.

Adding the loft

I wanted more living space in the boathouse so it was time for a major change. Over the course of several weeks I built the framing for the second story. It was not really walls but a different style of roof that would give me a loft area for sleeping quarters.

I tore off the roof myself. One big challenge was making sure the debris did not fall into the water. And a dropped tool was often irretrievable. The house was tied up to the riverbank but it was quite a steep drop off. I believe I lost a half a dozen hammers to the river bottom. I spent a bit of time fishing with a heavy duty magnet trying to retrieve tools but had little luck. When it came time to hoist the new framing, I hired my friend Joe, a carpenter, and together we raised the roof.

It was fall of the year, I did not have much time to get things closed in before winter arrived.

Just When Things Come Together...

...You have to tear them all apart again. The decision was made to tear the top off the boathouse and build up for more space. I had been living in the 12x20 space for over 5 years and it was time to add more.

I moved most of my belongings into various vehicles parked on the river bank (I live in a van down by the river!!) then began tearing things apart. I had little to no construction experience and there was no building code applicable to boathouses in my town so I just tore into it.

Soon we were open to the sky and stars.

My First House

I bought my very first house when I was just barely out of high school. I had done a year at university but it did not go so well so I took a job as a waitress/cook. One fall evening, my roommates invited me to a progressive dinner party- you know, where you go to one house for appetizers, the next for salads, etc. Well the main course was at her boyfriend's house. This was a unique house, I was amazed. He gave us the brief tour of his home and then took us to see the house next door that he also owned. I walked into that little house and immediately fell in love with it. "Can I rent it?" I said. And the next breath I said, "Can I buy it?" He said yes. I gave him $100 down, I think and made arrangements to pay $50 a month for a total of $600.

What a deal. It was a small cottage, one room, approximately 12 x 20 feet.

OK, so it needed some work.

So, that is not my stuff in there but what the place looked like when I first saw it. What was I thinking?!?

But the best part was the location...
Yup, a boathouse on the Mississippi. My place is the second from the left. The spring thaw brought the river over the banks that year and many years after that, but luckily, the house floats. Unfortunately, so did the woodpile that I kept on the bank and used to heat the house.

The houses are held afloat by 55 gallon barrels. The metal barrels rust out over time and fill with water and need to be replaced. The house had spent some time partially submerged and so there was A LOT of bad wood to be replaced. I think the boathouse was about 40 years old when I bought it.

Most structures were boat garages converted into living spaces, but mine had no evidence of having ever housed a boat. I had electricity, but no running water...inside. I spent a couple years rebuilding the space from the inside out. Replaced the floor, the wall studs, added insulation, updated the electrical. After a time, it was kind of sweet.

Seattle is known for their floating homes and my community is one of the few others that still allow people to actually reside in them. I lived there year round for over 7 years.