Interior Design on a Boat

So the thing about boats is that for the most part they come with the furniture built-in and, unless you have designed your own boat, you don’t get much say in it! We’ve talked about ways we could make changes to Batty’s layout but as everything is interconnected (tanks, storage, compressors, wiring, plumbing, etc) that doesn’t leave us many options, unless we want to get a different boat, which is not happening for awhile at least!

So short of a complete interior makeover, here are some of the ways we tried to liven up our tiny living space!

Wall Fixtures 

Whiteboard, canvases, ornaments, removable wall decals. The whiteboard is magnetic but because we are afraid of tiny magnets ending up either in the bilge or the baby’s stomach, we don’t really use that feature and instead doodle away to our hearts content. In reality, I use it to keep track of what’s in the fridge! 

The canvases were a project I did with my Mum. We set about finding a couple of complementary patterns that wouldn’t be too tiring in a small space and mounted them to some canvases with glue. That’s it. 

Fruit Bowl 

Because nothing is as sexy as this three-tiered hanging basket full to the brim with fresh goodness, it get’s it’s own category. It’s truly a work of art. Bottom tier is washed produce (apples, pears, tomatoes, etc), middle tier is stuff that doesn’t need to be washed (avocados, bananas, oranges, etc) and in top tier, I keep my ginger, garlic and a stash of onions so I don’t have to go digging in our longer term storage whenever I need an onion. So far it’s working great.

Cushion covers 

These were more of a baby proofing necessity than fashion statement and so I didn’t putt much effort into their design and fabric selection. I made our settee covers out of old sheets and have tied some sarongs around our pillows to make them pop a bit. This is about all we can change easily: material. Someday, when flying food and grubby fingers are no longer a regular occurrence, we will definitely recovered our settee cushions nicely.

Curtains

Again, more blue, so they had to go, Bryce’s mum made us some new lighter curtains which really brighten the place up.

Upholstery

When we moved aboard Batty, one of the first things I noticed (and didn’t like) was that EVERYTHING was blue. Now theres nothing wrong with blue, but being on the water, we see an awful lot of it so we wanted to lighten things up a bit.  The blue carpet was in great condition so I wasn’t going to mess with that. So the velvety material on the headboard  and reading nook in the master cabin was the first to go. I enlisted the help of my friend, Grace and her mad upholstery skills and recovered them both. We did manage to expand the  bed which made the reading nook just another part of the bed but its still cozy.

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We would love to hear from you. What other ideas do you have for brightening up a small space?