downsizing to fit on narrowboat

[isatis]

So here we are trying to gather Gubbins for a boot sale hoping the weather will hold for tomorrow,

I feel the need for a little encouragement as I wade through our belongings in preparation for life aboard boat. Any tales,suggestions and funny comments welcome.

[Athy]

Don't sell your boots. The towpaths can get muddy.

[BruceinSanity]

It's hard, isn't it? My advice would be not to think about what to get rid of, but what you need to keep. Anything you've not used in the past six months, except winter clothing, should go. Anything you won't routinely need onboard, ditto.

 

Clothes, sort into two piles, winter and summer. Decide how often you are going to run a washload then keep just enough in each category to last that length of time.

 

Music: rip it all to the laptop and sell or give away the lot.

 

Books: we have an extension library with our daughter so we get by with around fifty paper books in total. All the rest we read on Kindle, for which MobileRead forum and Project Gutenberg are excellent sources of free stuff that's in the public domain. For every book you are tempted to keep, ask yourself honestly "am I ever going to read this again?"

 

Do all that and you'll still have about 200% too much, so you'll spend the next 12 months offloading even more stuff.

 

It sounds terrible, but it's actually very liberating.

 

Best of luck!

 

Bruce

[Ally]

Whatever you decide you need, halve it!

I kept far too much kitchen equipment, much of which I stored for about 6 years before passing it to my nice when she went to uni.

Car boots, charity shops, and a local youth hostel took lots of our stuff. We sold furniture along with the house.

[peterboat]

It's hard, isn't it? My advice would be not to think about what to get rid of, but what you need to keep. Anything you've not used in the past six months, except winter clothing, should go. Anything you won't routinely need onboard, ditto.

 

Clothes, sort into two piles, winter and summer. Decide how often you are going to run a washload then keep just enough in each category to last that length of time.

 

Music: rip it all to the laptop and sell or give away the lot.

 

Books: we have an extension library with our daughter so we get by with around fifty paper books in total. All the rest we read on Kindle, for which MobileRead forum and Project Gutenberg are excellent sources of free stuff that's in the public domain. For every book you are tempted to keep, ask yourself honestly "am I ever going to read this again?"

 

Do all that and you'll still have about 200% too much, so you'll spend the next 12 months offloading even more stuff.

 

It sounds terrible, but it's actually very liberating.

 

Best of luck!

 

Bruce

Buy a kindle or Kobo I have a wide beam and my large bookshelves have to go on a NB they would rolled it onto its side

 

Peter

[Bettie Boo]

When sorting out which bits to bring for the galley, consider your power supply on the boat. We are on a widebeam with a fair amount of power supply, and Dave limited me to 3 electrical kitchen appliances. My "couldn't live without" choices were.....food processor, slow cooker, & bread maker (I did actually sneak on my coffee maker and use it a couple times a week to justify it's existence).

 

Check the size of your oven on the boat, chances are your massive family style roasting tins with lids won't fit. Think of how many people you will be cooking for on a daily basis and only bring the cookware needed for that amount.

 

I currently have a cupboard (under the tv) full of photo albums (well the ones that weren't lost overboard on moving day!) which I will be digging out, taking digital photos of the contents saving to a memory stick and then getting rid of all the photo albums which take up valuable space.

 

Cloths, as others have said, do a complete cull. If you haven't worn it in the last 6 months get rid of. Good set of water proofs, good winter coat and boats with good treads.

 

I swear by vac pack bags for winter cloths storage during the summer.

 

Good luck - I actually enjoyed giving away the majority of our belongings before moving on board whether to friends or charities.

[Lady Muck]

One thing I started doing last year was photographing/ scanning any paperwork such as instruction books and uploading them to evernote and tagging them so I can find them. That was half a shelf of papers gone.

My music, books, films and magazines are all digital. I have 1tb of cloud storage - make sure you back your digital files up.

Agree with measuring your oven, as only some roasting tins will fit. Also look for crushable mixing bowls/strainers and smaller sized items. I got rid of the food processor and bought a stick blender. I learnt how to steam rice properly and gave away the rice cooker.

Lakeland is good for mini sized clothes airers, tiny baking trays, silicone folding kitchenware, tiny vacuum cleaners. Muji also good for kitchen and storage as it's Japanese and their stuff was intended for tiny apartment dwellings, also camping shops might have compact useful stuff.

Go for things which can have more than one purpose. My folding desk (made to order by Gopak, not beautiful but very strong), was used outside as the food serving table for our bbq last night, as were our wooden folding chairs ( from Ikea). The salad bowl is also used as a mixing bowl.

Folding things are great! I have a fab Turkish tea table with a brass top that stores under the gunwhales and comes out for parties.

I have to keep a few smart clothes for work, but I find I have much more use for scruffy outdoor things, now. Good waterproof boots, wellies and full waterproof clothing are things I never needed as a landlubber, now they are essential.

Bulky fur and woollen coats take too much space up, I now have the packable down coats that you get in Uniqlo - they take up no space at all and are really warm.

But I remember when I moved onboard my partner said he was so happy he could've thrown everything out of the window into the canal.

Edited July 5, 2014 by Lady Muck

[Happy Go Lucky]

From our experience, this is only the first cull of many

 

If you're not sure about something, put it in storage. After a month or two go through everything you have put there. A few things will leap out at you because they would have been really useful if they had been on the boat. The rest is almost certainly un-necessary and can be taken to the next boot sale! Anything that has been on the boat and hasn't been used can join it. Anchors, fire extinguishers and the like are excluded from this process by the way.

 

This process can be repeated several times with smaller storage units each time until everything you really want and need fits on the boat.

 

All I have to do now is finish the boat rebuild so all the stuff I've stashed away in storage to be used by Christmas can be properly assessed

[Phil Ambrose]

When we first moved aboard prior to the moving date we had a garage sale every Sunday for a month and on the day we moved out of our cottage I had hired a skip, anything left went in the skip. That was it, job done. We later found we had somehow managed to get it about right and had very little we needed to dump also very little we wished we had kept, all by more luck than judgment.

Good Luck and enjoy.

Phil

[Pykebird]

I seem to have gone full circle since moving aboard 12 years ago! I took 6 big laundry bags of "stuff" with me, and my grandmothers' milking stool!

After a major re fit I have ended up with more electrical stuff than I started with and tons of storage. But I do have a rule that if it doesn't fit IN the boat, I don't have it so I have bought/given away some bits.

I think I probably went a bit over the top with the de cluttering, getting better at it and as some have said, it can be quite liberating. I am also lucky it that my "work" clothes can and do double as boating ones.

I also only have to share my space the dogs.

[Lady Muck]

The main issue for me is other peoples gifts. People keep buying me heavy mirrors or pictures and I've no space left on the flat walls on the boat and no way of hanging these things.

I have to keep saying food or booze only as gifts, but not everyone listens!

[Ricco1]

Get rid of most of your kitchen stuff. You don't need 20 plates, 15 different sorts of glasses, 20 knives and forks etc. Get rid of all your kitchen gizmos. Cut down on towels etc., you don't need more than a few. Get rid of most of your clothes, you never wear most of them anyway. Don't get rid of any of your tools. If you do you'll regret it, and have to buy new ones in due course. Keep a decent part of your storage space for what you enjoy doing be that reading, fishing or whatever.

[Nightwatch]

We moved onboard last Monday. The boat is full, and so are two of our relations garages.

 

I took loads of advice and thought we were being really adventurous with our car boots,charity shop runs and trips to the tip, alas, no.

We have to be more hard. Well 'arid in fact.

 

How many pairs of shoes? The cheese grater, wedding pressie forty years ago. The list goes on.

 

Martyn

[Lady Muck]

Get rid of most of your kitchen stuff. You don't need 20 plates, 15 different sorts of glasses, 20 knives and forks etc. Get rid of all your kitchen gizmos. Cut down on towels etc., you don't need more than a few. Get rid of most of your clothes, you never wear most of them anyway. Don't get rid of any of your tools. If you do you'll regret it, and have to buy new ones in due course. Keep a decent part of your storage space for what you enjoy doing be that reading, fishing or whatever.

This is true - you will need more tools than you ever used to have. Things I got rid of and then realised I would use - a step ladder (for fruit picking). Hedge clippers and basic gardening things like secateurs, for pruning back overgrown mooring spots.

We moved onboard last Monday. The boat is full, and so are two of our relations garages.

 

We moved onboard 8 years back. Soon we are clearing out father in laws house, where we have a whole double wardrobe of stuff. I still keep things at my mums - the 7 years worth of accounts that we need to, for instance.

When we moved onboard, we had a playstation and telly in the bath for several months. And a campervan on the bankside piled to the ceiling.

[Nightwatch]

I rest my case. We ARE normal....

 

Liberating, yes, painful,yes, easy, not on yer nelly!

 

Even George the Staffie is on a diet.

 

Martyn

[Phil Ambrose]

Why is George on a diet? is he taking up too much room?

Phil

[Nightwatch]

Far too much.

[Athy]

Inspired by this topic, I went through the drawers and cupboards of my wardrobe. I was hard-hearted. I tried garments on to see if they still fitted. I was ruthless.

 

The result, after an hour, was that I threw out two jerseys, one shirt and two pairs of trainers. Everything else went back into the cupboards and drawers.

 

It is a good thing that I am not planning to live on a narrowboat.

[isatis]

First boot sale over quite successful,1st of many i rather think stuff going on eBay, kids mostly sorted and minimalised, down to their limit,just. More of the same to achieve

[Phil Ambrose]

Inspired by this topic, I went through the drawers and cupboards of my wardrobe. I was hard-hearted. I tried garments on to see if they still fitted. I was ruthless.

 

The result, after an hour, was that I threw out two jerseys, one shirt and two pairs of trainers. Everything else went back into the cupboards and drawers.

 

It is a good thing that I am not planning to live on a narrowboat.

Hi Athy, two words.....try harder

Phil

[Athy]

Phil, if I was indeed planning to move on to a boat I'm sure that I would try harder. Needs must, but I don't need to at the moment.

 

As for two words, I shall not post the merry quip which rose to my lips....

[Phil Ambrose]

Phil, if I was indeed planning to move on to a boat I'm sure that I would try harder. Needs must, but I don't need to at the moment.

 

As for two words, I shall not post the merry quip which rose to my lips....

LOL was it to do with go forth and multiply? Soz don't have smileys on my BB else I would have popped in the appropriate one.

Phil

[OldPeculier]

When, back in January, my wife announced that she was moving in with her boy friend , I told her that after all her hard work making this house a home, it was only fair that she should take what she wanted.

 

Knowing her so well, she has emptied the place for me.

 

So now, all I own is a couple of car loads of stuff.

 

Job done.

[YamYam]

When, back in January, my wife announced that she was moving in with her boy friend , I told her that after all her hard work making this house a home, it was only fair that she should take what she wanted.

 

Knowing her so well, she has emptied the place for me.

 

So now, all I own is a couple of car loads of stuff.

 

Job done.

 

 

Very similar to my situation. Gave her everything but insisted on the toaster, a knife and fork and bits of bedding. So fresh start all round really

[Daiboy]

As has been mentioned, a Kindle and Kobo are a must. The Kindle to buy books to keep on the machine to read again and a Kobo to download ebooks from libraries that you belong to. You can borrow for 7, 14 or 28 days and after the specified time they disappear from the Kobo and are "returned" to the library. No late fees!