living with nature

Off-grid living on a narrowboat

Since moving up to London from the smallholding in Essex I have been exploring how to live well in small spaces. My sixth-floor balcony design won Camden in Bloom best mini-garden in 2021 and it provided me with a huge diversity of greens, all the eggs I needed from my quails and a wormery to compost my kitchen waste. I also had space where I could naturally dye materials.

I moved onto Titania, a 62-foot narrowboat in April 2023 having carefully planned and designed the space with Rishil Parekh and with his help building much of the bespoke furniture with recycled materials. I designed the off-grid systems: my solar and battery system, water filtration system and my separating toilet and humanure composting methods. I have a beautiful multi-fuel stove made by Chilli Penguin in Wales, that keeps me warm through winter and has an oven where I cook baked potatoes, roasted vegetables, flapjacks and other delicious things.

Tiny space living

  • Multi-functional furniture

    Much of the furniture is multi-functional. My favourite is the bar that has a piano as a draw underneath. I can take the piano out and then there’s space for another two people to sit and eat. The photo shows Rishil, who designed and installed the piano draw.

  • Storage

    Storage is squirreled away everywhere: under the chaise longue, the double bed, even under the kitchen cabinets. You have to think of everything: anything that doesn’t have a place will sit in the walkway for you to trip over it!

  • Staying sane!

    The boat is narrow: if I stretch my arms out I can touch the sides. There are important things that keep me sane:

    Light: the boat has lots of large windows and the light pours in. When the sun is shining I often have rippling water reflected on the ceiling. It’s lovely!

    Wide walkways: being able to move through the space easily is important and creates more of a sense of space.

Off-grid living

  • Solar panels

    My solar panels provide electricity which is stored in a lithium phosphate battery linked to a lead-acid battery.

    I have 1.23 Kw of solar and that is enough to recharge the batteries if the sun is shining. Grey winter days typical in England give very little solar so then I have to run my engine to charge the batter.

  • Heating

    One of the most commonly asked questions is whether it is cold living on a narrowboat. The answer is that it can be both cold and damp. The key to heating is the multi-fuel stove that sits in the middle of the boat. The stove both heats and dries out the boat.

    I’m lucky enough to also have a diesel central heating system which helps heat up the boat when I arrive back late in the evening. I have returned to the boat to find temperature to be around freezing on the boat.

  • Compost toilet

    Another commonly asked question is how does your toilet work? I use a separating toilet that separates pee and poo. The poo is covered with coir and the pee collected. Urine contains precisely the right combination of nutrients to feed plants so use the pee to feed plants on my allotment.