Interior Planning

We've been through many ideas about the interior design of Misterton, from the early days of largely leave it like it is, all the way to gutting the whole interior and having a scarily blank canvas.

One key thing to bear in mind is that Misterton is a Lincoln Keel. Most of the Keel barges round the Humber had higher freeboard (the 'depth' of the boat) than Misterton, meaning about 9 foot of headroom before conversion starts. Misterton was built lower and longer to carry grain down to Lincoln, and so she has about 1.5 foot less all round. For most people this would be academic, but Mary and I are both over 6 foot tall.....

I find that at the 'edges' of the inside where the coachroof is lowest, that there is not quite enough room for me to stand upright.

The floor is laid over joists that run across from one side of the hull to the other, and these are over a foot above the bottom of the boat, as there is a large 'I-beam' keel running the length of the boat in the center, so to have a level floor, it needs to be above this. However, we hit upon the idea of lowering the floor either side of this, so that some areas have about a foot more headroom. Coming down the stairs from the wheelhouse on the starboard side, there would be a corridor past the workshop and into a living area also set low, headroom here will be about 7'6". The kitchen and the port side of the living area will at the current hight, which gives about 6'6" of headroom at the highest point. The second bedroom will also be mainly at the lower level. There is a lowered corridor on the port side leading to the bathroom and main bedroom. The bathroom will be at the current height, as there needs to be room for plumbing under the floor. The main bedroom will be split 50/50 between high and low.

Its shown here in this picture, the darker cross hatched areas will be the lower sections.

 

Update January 2009

Still sticking with the same theory, we've come up with the idea of the kitchen being lower too. I've produced some pictures of what the floorplan will now look like using Google's Sketchup software. this first picture shows the living area from the rear to the front.

There are a couple more different views here.

The dimensions on the diagram are not exact, thats about as precise as you can get using a touch pad on a cross channel ferry! :)