I have an idea for a new project…

Praew and I have been very interested in Tiny houses, as the houses we have built have gotten smaller and smaller with each iteration. First BaanMae (my mother-in-law’s house), then BaanRimNaam (the one we are living in now), then BaanLoiNaam (the floating house).

BaanLoiNaam is a remarkable 3m x 4m for a total of 12 square meters (130 sq. feet), although this is cheating a little, because it doesn’t include the outdoor bathroom and kitchen, which are on the balcony. But still, it is pretty remarkable anyway.

Now just last weekend, we rowed down the canal to Wat Phut (a Thai buddhist temple nearby) where they were having a fair. Something about the canal life really appeals to us. We chose this land in a large part due to its being located on the canal.

So imagine a tiny houseboat allowing us to cruise down the canal in style and comfort. Maybe we can run it off of an electric motor and batteries? And if we can add 2 of the 300W solar panels we have on the house, it might be able to charge up a 2kWh battery pack about 30% while we stop an hour for lunch if we can find a sunny place to dock it. (Maybe a small petrol generator can guarantee we don’t run out the batteries and get stuck.)

And the boat itself doubles as a guest room in case anyone comes to stay with us.

I love this idea!

So I did an internet search to see what others have done and came across this site selling plans for a nearly ideal houseboat. His boat design is 8′ wide and 17′ long with an 8′ x 10′ cabin. For comparison, our wooden longtail boat that we’ve used for a number of years but is currently out-of-commission is about 7m long (about 23ft). (Although the longtail is only about 4ft wide.) So this boat should fit in our boat dock on the land quite easily.

Here are some videos:

So I went ahead and bought the plans last week. I need to work out some details in the design to make sure the height can fit under the bridges on the canal around here, and I want the workers to finish with the kitchen before we even think much about this, but I showed the plans to the foreman (who loves working with wood), and he sounds somewhat interested.

So it will be a few months before we begin at the earliest, but after a week or two thinking about this, I’m pretty excited about the idea already. 🙂