Lately I’ve been feeling like I live under a huge floating mound of my own belongings. I’m not going to lie, as I approached the boat on my walk in from work today, I likened my dwelling to a hobbit hole. Maybe it was the small garden that we moved to the front of the boat or the moss-like green that appeared to be growing on the deck. I’m not entirely sure, but more likely it has to do with the fact that pretty much every space on the boat is filled with tools, supplies, or our own junk. Although we downsized about two months ago when we first moved onto the boat (and that was not easy!), we still have a lot of stuff packed into a small space. Not to say that the things we brought with us aren’t important; in fact it would be hard to get along with much less right now as we are both still doing the 9-5 thing.
Here is the layout of the boat so you can get a good picture of what the space is like. (I posted this on one of my about pages last week, but feel it is particularly pertinent to this post.)
The most important thing to remember when occupying in a small space is to stay organized. Here are some of the storage solutions (sealed plastic bins are the best!):
Currently residing on the top of the boat:
- Two bicycles, an AC unit, a small garden, a larger cooler for water, a shop vac, some wet shoes, an extra sail cover, a collapsed bimini top, and two reclining chairs, among a few other items.
Inside the boat we have divided the storage space as such:
- The right quarter berth is full of tools and necessary boat items, while the left quarter berth contains plastic bins of clothes, a djembe drum, and a few other random items all hidden behind a huge plastic hanging closet that I found at Target.
- The kitchen has short rectangular cabinets behind it which are full of canned vegetables, tea, plates, cups, silverware, mugs, espresso cups, a french press, and two stove-top espresso makers.
- The other side of the boat is filled with food and my hand-cranked pasta maker.
- There is a locker full of pots and pans a little farther inside the boat, and there are cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink and in the bathroom.
- The bedroom, which you can see in these pictures is about the only possible place to keep our personal knicknacks, books, pictures, and the like.
