My Floating Home
Upcoming episodes
May 18th
1200p
Historic Cargo Ship Home
Aart Simons and Nanouk Kropman met through a shared love of sailing! To fulfill their dream of living on water, they've bought a disused 1950’s Dutch Cargo Ship. Their journey to transforming this 65-year-old hunk of metal will be a logistical, financial, and emotional rollercoaster ride.
May 18th
100p
GIANT ECO-HOME, SEATTLE, USA
A couple builds a huge eco-home packed with innovative features including an underwater basement complete with a window looking out into the waters of the lake. Michelle Lanker and Bill Bloxom are outdoor loving environmentalist and they want to make a floating home with as much Eco friendliness as possible.They get an architect in to realise a breath taking design, with a curved roof covered in grass and solar panels and a huge underwater basement with a viewing window out into the waters of the lake. We follow builder Bob Little as he struggles to make the viewing window thick enough to withstand the elements. With the environment in mind they re-use 100 year old cedar logs for their interior cladding and wardrobes, drying them out first. When they revisit the build with the exterior and the layout completed, Michelle and Bill are blown away by the underwater basement within the float where they can view fish underwater.
May 18th
130p
TINY SHANTY HOUSE, MAINE, USA
A team builds an innovative ‘tiny’ floating home in Seattle. Steve King and his friend Rick Keith meet up in Maine every year to restore old boats. Now Steve wants to move there full time by building his very own tiny float home. Using recycled materials they build a shanty-style houseboat on a catamaran hull. The homemade hulls must be carefully sealed or the houseboat will sink. Making up the design as they go along, the two friends visit a marine salvage yard and even find some windows left by the roadside to put the finishing touches to their Shanty House Boat. Completed in just two months, they then must jack it up onto a trailer and take it to the waters edge. Here is the moment of truth. With no idea whether it will sink or float they watch as it inches into the water. It floats but the risky test is to navigate it out into open ocean as they take it to its mooring in Portland. The maiden voyage is a success and Steve takes us around his novel new floating man cave, complete with drawers made out of vegetable crates and a bathroom built down into one of the floating catamaran hulls! We leave him sitting on his sun deck taking in his million dollar sea views, all for just $10,000!
May 18th
200p
SKY VIEW HOUSE, MOORDRECHT THE NETHERLANDS
A couple builds a super long floating home deep in the heart of canal country. This water loving couple live on a old steam ship and decide it’s time to modernise. They want a float home to join a small but well-established community of floating homes on a canal, south of the capital Amsterdam in the Netherlands. After meeting with a builder who is an expert in constructing float homes they decide on a wish list for their home, which includes; a raised roof with a 360 sky view, a modern open plan living space and a wraparound deck to enjoy the surrounding countryside. The biggest challenge to design a float home in the Netherlands is to make sure that the structure can make the journey to it’s mooring site. A float home must fit through a network of narrow and shallow canals with tight locks and low bridges. It’s a nail biting experience as Wout and Lydia home makes it way through these waterways. Some sections are so tight with only a few centimetres to spare on either side that only hands and feet can move the home forward. Finally the home makes it to it’s mooring. Wout and Lydia show us round their spectacular home with it’s modern open plan living area leading out onto the wraparound deck with stunning views of the idyllic rural setting.
May 18th
230p
MEGA HOUSEBOAT, NOTTINGHAM, UK
A couple builds an experimental oversized houseboat so they can take their home with them anywhere on the vast network of canals that crisscross the UK. Janet and Dwayne have never lived on the water before – nor even driven a boat. So taking the plunge and building their own dream floating home from scratch is a huge challenge. On their wish list are; a spare bedroom, large kitchen-diner, and en-suite in the master bedroom. Export boat-builder Les Robinson guides them through the entire operation from the design, through to build and launch. Work begins with the huge steel hull, which Les gives a traditional high-gloss paint job before fitting a high-spec interior. This includes a bathroom with a bathtub – something never normally fitted on a boat – which causes Les a few headaches. After launching the vast vessel, brand new skippers Janet and Dwayne have to navigate it up a busy waterway to their permanent mooring, without crashing into the bank or other boats. Once safely docked, Janet and Dwayne proudly show us the end result - a stunning and huge houseboat, bigger than almost anything else on the canal system. They have a luxurious master bedroom complete with en-suite and bath, as well as a spare double bedroom and additional shower. A spacious kitchen diner complete with wood worktops, and a six-seat breakfast bar makes for a comfy and luxurious heart of the home. And the finishing touch – their beautiful floating home is completely mobile.
May 25th
1200p
Monster Floating Home
In Amsterdam, Jeroen and Lianne Gels are stepping onto the property ladder in a big way. In just seven months, with a baby on the way and a budget of £135,000 they plan to turn a titanic 254-ton industrial cement carrier into their dream waterborne home.
May 25th
100p
Wild View Cottage
Linda’s dream is to build a floating home and moor it at Maple Bay Marina on Vancouver Island, positioned so it overlooks her favorite nature reserve – Chisolm Island. When the extra weight of the glass requires complex engineering to stop the walls from collapsing, the building process proves to be more complicated that she had originally expected. In the end, her spectacular floating home nests on the emerald waters of the bay, offering 360 degree views of the surrounding nature.
May 25th
130p
Waterside Family Home
The Baris family live in the Netherlands, in the heart of canal country with dreams of building a floating home on the local waterways. Their ambitious design includes floor to ceiling windows along the length of the first level, and a fun underwater space on the ground level with a den and bedrooms for the kids. Narrow locks, shallow water and low bridges threaten the new build every step of the way, but the home finally makes it to its’ new mooring site and the family begin a new idyllic life on the water.
May 25th
200p
High-Tech River House
Lee and Justine want to transform an old steel hull boat into a 2 story floating house on the River Medway near Rochester, England. With only 16 weeks to build, the crew must battle bad weather and the enormous daily tide that lifts and drops the boat, twice a day. To make matters worse, when Justine’s huge diesel powered oven needs to be lifted on board, the weight of the oven causes the house to tilt, threatening it to collapse. The result is an amazing house with sleek modern interiors and upper decks that provide the perfect platform to soak in spectacular views of the river.
May 25th
230p
City Water Living
Valentin and Daria’s dream is to escape their cramped city apartment with their young son, and live on the Thames in their own floating home, right under the iconic Tower Bridge. They create their own design converting an old barge into a three tiered contemporary floating apartment, but are met with the challenge of moving their new finished home back to London. After a hair raising journey, they finally make it to England and their eye catching floating apartment becomes a new attraction next to Tower Bridge.