Living afloat

The story of the Luxe Motor MS Watergeus and how to convert a Dutch barge into a houseboat

Building a den with hatches

This article is completely based on my experience when the den was built on my barge. It mainly describes how we worked and I 've used he same dimensions of my boat in the article.

Measuring & ordering

First of all, before you can start building you need to order materials. I knew I wanted a platform of 3 meters, a small cabin of 1 meters width and a den of 23 meters. Together this would make 26 meters, since the cabin was built on top of the den.

The height of the den is 62,5 cm. Since I was on a tight budget, and still am, this was the cheapest solution. I do recommend a den of 80 cm if you ever need to build one on your boat.

Besides the plates for the den, you need a strip for the join of he den and the deck. This strip was around 8 cm height. Inside, your ribs need to be lengthened, so we had to order some strips to create the ribs.

Freshly delivered plates on the deck of my neighbour's pusher

In total the following plates were ordered:

• 26 meters plating of 2,50m x 1,25m
• 55 meters strip of 8cm