My favorite part is the 3-d visual they give you. You can walk through the place and see the furniture,walls,windows ect or you can fly over it as it spins around ,giving you an aerial view.If you do this before you put the roof on, you can see inside the rooms.
Lots of fun.
All my life Ive been planning my perfect house. Ive drawn a gazzilion rough scetches on scraps of paper. This is sooo much better! I really want a floathome.Much as I love my boat,when I said I wanted to live on the water, I had always pictured a floathome, not a boat.This boat was a bonus I never expected and it would make an awesome cabin to escape to, but for full time living, I want real size appliances,a workshop and some space to entertain.
The place Ive designed is for a 40x30 float with a 30x30 home and a 10x30 deck. I had orignally designed an attic bedroom and on-suite but this programs limitations would not allow me that option.Ive redesigned it to fit on one floor with the option of using the attic for some storage with a pull down ladder.Having a staircase to get upstairs was going to take up too much room.
With my space all mapped out, Ive been scouring craigslist for deals for the house.So far I have a jaccuzi tub, matching toilet,another toilet if I deside on an upstairs onsuite all for free and a gas full size stove and 4 beautiful interior doors for the grand total of two hundred dollars. Ive seen some good deals on gorgeous french style windows from heritage houses and am keeping my eyes open for deals on appliances and fixtures.
Kind of silly to be collecting all this stuff ahead of time, but it takes time to find the good deals and by the time I find a free float, Ill be ready.
I wiped out on the docks last week and gave my self a huge bruise on my hip and wrenched my back and neck.
I was in too much pain to do much work on the boat, so I spent my time designing the floathome.
I find thats it good to put your dreams on paper,make them real,put a solid intention out there to the universe so it knows exactly what you want. I did that years ago,making a detailed list of my perfect man. David matched that list almost to the T.
So be careful what you wish for, be very specific and make it concrete(a list,drawing,model ect) Intention is everything! May all your dreams come true if its in the best interest of the universe.
11 comments:
Ouch! that looks sore! I like the doors etc, good strategy to locate and aquire early, that goes for timber too, nothing wrong with second use timber, as long as you treat it well and theres no rot!insulation is another thing as most installations have some over and don`t know what to do with it. with regard to Ply or sheet try the exhibition industry as they use mega amounts of it and throw it away when its finished with (well here the use it a couple of times and then chuck it)Where are you going to store it all? I loved the programme too its just whats needed! best of luck with your build. what would you expect to pay for a float and a mooring place?
HiRob, well a float can cost anywhere from a few thousand to a few hundred thousand depending on what its made of,the condition its in and who you buy it from.Im hoping to find a free one. David has lots of connections on the river and people are always calling him with deals.There is a steel one up the river that has a hole in it and is half sunk. David figures he can salvage it and fix it up for me. The biggest cost would be towing it here and redecking it with lumber. As for moorage, again it depends on where you want to live. We have marinas that can charge $1000 or more a month and some much cheaper the further up river you go.Im hoping to keep it under $500 a month if possible.Right now Im storing my goodies in the back of our huge workshop.David has tons of lumber already stored here.I wont look for large amounts of wood until I have a float to store it on, but figured it wouldnt hurt to keep my eye out for appliances, fixtures ect in the meantime.
Do you have to moor it in a marina, is it possible to buy a bit of river edge and moor it there? do you have to pay a duty to the River comission? thanks for the reply by the way. Rob
Hi Rob,
I dont have to moor it in a marina per say.I could make it off the grid entirely and anchor it in a bay somewhere.If I had hundreds of thousands of dollars( I dont) I could buy land with water frontage and build my own dock.
That being said, from what I can gather, all water frontage in Canada is owned and controlled by the government.All access and usage of waterfront must be applied for as a water lease whether you own the land or not. Depending on the size, location and usage of said space, decides the amount you have to pay yearly.
Different bodies of water have their own buerocrats running things. You have to tell them what you want the water lease for and they decide if it meets their specific environmental,business,residential ect specifications for that particular parcel.
For example we applied for a water lease just up the river from here and were turned down for using it as a marina to store boats as the river gets alot of barge traffic in that area and they dont want to have to slow down and watch their wake.
Another location was deemed too enviromental sensitive ( some kind of grass they wanted to protect) so we wouldn't have been able to dredge it, which was needed for our usage.
Floathomes and liveabords have been getting a rough time in general around here. People pay a premium for water front homes and dont like us getting a better view for much less cost.There is also the issue of raw sewage and the few floathome marinas still in operation around here are all switching to automatic pump out systems to the city sewers. This is an expensive operation and they charge accordingly for moorage. Most have a buy-in fee of anywhere from 5-20 thousand dollars.Thats just to get into the marina, you still have a thousand dollar a month slip fee and a couple of hundred dollars for marina upkeep fees per month.Utilities are extra on top of that.
David has been searching far and wide for more water leases so as to expand his business and for us to have a secure moorage for our homes.Im counting on him to find us a good deal where we can set up our own marina.Its just a matter of time.
Thanks for that! it is very similar to here (UK) but mainly with one river authority National rivers etc and local bylaws that expound the detail. the live aboard houseboat fraternity are also getting a bad time. the few moorings available (not available) usually have users rights and local council regulation, associated with them. at the moment the rivers authority are asking existing users to qoute how much they would be prepared to pay annually for their mooring and then armed with that information they are selling the moorings off at auction :o(( so it seems that all moorings will eventually become private owned, but not necessarily by their user? best of luck with your search. with reference to the Marina idea. here they moor a string of fairly large boats (maybe the Bowie) off shore out in the deeper water of the river (on heavy lumber piles) the the next phaase is to float a pontoon along side and then install a walkway out to it and finally finger pontoons off it. The large boats keep the inshore wake down and the rest is obvious.
That sounds like a good idea, but I dont think our river is wide enough for that. We get alot of industrial traffic on our river, huge log booms and barges being towed up and down. They are always moaning at us to pull our boats in tighter and stay within our alloted water lease.
Also we would still need shore access through someones property to get to the ramp and for parking and most of us are not set up to be completely off the grid. We rely on shore power and water hoses. Someday we would like to build a completly off the grid community but it takes time ,money and the ability to change peoples minds about what is possibile.
The authorities are leary of things that havent been tried before. If there is no precedent, they dont want to stick their necks out to make one.
Love the idea of being off the grid, thats why for the last three years I have been striving to create Hydrogen on demand, to do exactly that (run a generator on water) thanks for your replies
Rob
Wow, when you get that sorted out let me know, we would be very interested in something like that. Good luck with it!
Thanks for that! I too would be happy to sort it out! sure I can create hydrogen from waer but I would have to compress it and store it in a cylinder (dodgy) so as to use it at a higher volume than I can currently manufacture it :o(( its hydrogen on demand that I am stuck with at the moment, generating it from a cars electrial system. See Stan Myer on Google!
I love your positive intentions ~ may they serve you well! A floathome would be nice; we suffer the same challenges as you do with the waterfront issues and liveaboards being pariahs.
And YOWCH on the hip injury! That looks really, really tender!
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