The kitchen

No, it's not a galley, this is a house boat so it's a kitchen.

I bought standard domestic kitchen units with solid wood doors which are good value. Building your own kitchen takes a very long time. This has given me loads of cupboard and work top space and clean, uncluttered lines.

BSS kicks in again with your cooker. It must have flame-failure devices fitted to all burners and be correctly jetted to run on bottled gas. It also helps if it has a 12v ignition clicker and light. Only marine and caravan cookers fit the bill, but they are expensive and irritatingly small. I thought I had bought a full size unit (Spinflo Caprice) but it's a few inches smaller and the oven is a pretty feeble size.

I wanted to fit real granite work tops. Although I could find the granite at a reasonable price (about £200), the cost of machining and fitting was ruinous. I have since found that cutting granite is not that hard, you can do it with a diamond blade in an angle grinder. The imitation granite I fitted is not a bad likeness though.

Finished kitchen
The fridge was a very close fit
 

The Bathroom

The loo and holding tank go in

These days you are not allowed to pump your sewerage into the river, and quite right too. I had a 160-litre waste tank custom made by Tektanks to tuck neatly into the bilge. It wasn't cheap but they did a really good job.

Atop this I fitted a large-bowl Jabsco sea toilet with a manual pump. Flush water comes in from the engine bilge and waste goes straight down, which is neat as you don't need to worry about siphons forming.

TIP: The waste tank must be vented, but the vent air filters are expensive. Use a gas mask refill instead, they cost about £2, are just as good an even fit perfectly into the standard 40mm ID waste hose.

The shower is also a full-size domestic unit. There is just enough room in the bilge for the waste and trap to allow the tray to be fitted at floor level, which is important for headroom. I used an old computer fan as an extractor.

My Dad did a heroic job on the tiling, which is a job I really hate!

 

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