Top 10 tips for small space and more effective work/home living

Anyone who knows me knows I may be organised but I am not renowned for being neat and tidy! This trait, combined with moving to live permanently on a 50ft narrowboat has given me a particular challenge. Narrowboats are compact homes that demand ingenious and creative storage spaces if we are going to have space to live aboard with everything we want and need around us.

During the pandemic living and working from home has put added pressure on all our environments, whether our home floats or not. Making sure that work doesn’t swamp our homes 24/7 is important to enable us to switch off when we aren’t at work. We are being forced to combine the two but we need to keep a balance, and making the most of your space is one way to do that – a place for work to disappear to for downtime. The answer is to compartmentalise to maximise the space we have. This also mitigates potential feelings of claustrophobic living.

Over the past months on our boat we’ve learned (and keep learning) how to make our constrained space work for us, have what we need to hand, and have space to live. People regularly ask us – how do you fit everything in? isn’t it really cramped? how can you fit an office on the boat? The answers are, “with planning”, “no” and “easily”. Here are my top 10 tips so far.

1. Every available space must multi-task– when space is limited you can’t afford to waste it – that includes inside the cupboard doors and under the bed. Inside cupboard doors have narrow storage for keys, thin coats, and hot water bottles (essential comfort at this time of the year). Our double bed is built in on the boat, and raised so we have two big drawers underneath that open out into the corridor. The space beyond the drawers is accessed only by pulling out the mattress and raising the slatted base so contains things we don’t access infrequently. It has not only our hot water tank (horizontally placed to use the space well), but also has big spaces where we store the bulky summer cushions at this time of year, and also keep other seasons clothes. I am now constantly going round the boat looking at spaces and thinking what can work harder!
2. Fold – at the risk of parroting Marie Kondo hang or fold and organise. Clothes and towels are some of the worst culprits I’ve found. Rolled towels are compact and can be stored far more easily. Unfolded they take up so much more space. By folding teeshirts, trousers, jumpers etc I have managed to double use of available space. (It’s only taken me 60 years to discover this with the help of some fascinating YouTube videos and an introduction from my eldest daughter!)

3. Be wardrobe wise – admittedly I don’t have a ballgown on board, so there isn’t a need for really long hanging space but sorting wardrobe hanging has increased available space. We have a single wardrobe on board which now has a single deep shelf at the top and two staggered hanging rails beneath. I have one rail, Steve has the other. Mine is set further back so my clothes slot down behind his and that works well. The base of the wardrobe gives space for bags, holdalls and I just discovered a second toilet seat there… apparently it came with the spare toilet cassette! On the hanging rails the pull rings from tins and cans enable coat hangers to double up too.
4. Get hung up! Hanging things gets them off the floor, off workspaces, out of the way and makes the most of small spaces which could otherwise not earn their keep. Almost everything can be hung up – in any room. Bath sheets and towels in daily use are hung on hooks to enable them to air. The irritating hanger loops from inside jumpers and dresses have come into their own! Instead of sticking out of the neck of my clothes in haphazard fashion, they are now stitched onto towels as useful hangers! The ceiling of the boat is also used for hanging an airer and washing lines around the stove area so we can dry efficiently in the winter.

We’ve made some Shaker-style peg racks that fit under the gunwhales (pronounced gunnels: the narrow walkway which runs all round the boat at towpath height). Inside that gives us a flat section before the sides of the boat slope up to the roof. It could be wasted space but narrow shelves (some rescued from skips) fit under it as do hooks.

5. Shelve – shelves are flexible spaces and here on the boat we have a lot of them. Some are built in as shelves but others are repurposed – jam, chutneys and a biscuit tin sit on drawers repurposed into shelves from a small chest of drawers we used to have but which was too big to fit on the boat. Above them sits an old wine box which has become a spice rack.

Shelves and storage can really be made of anything – as you can see! We also have added shelf racks for plates and to maximise the space inside existing kitchen shelves.

6. Step up to maximise space – we have steps at both ends of the boat (it’s how the living space has a sensible, workable height!) and every single step earns its keep. The space at the back of the boat enables us to store the things which we need but don’t use regularly – paint, electrical gear, diy materials etc. Come the summer I can’t wait to get painting the outside of the boat to make her look lovely, but until then the paint and brushes sit and wait out of the way.

7. Walls need to work – in our case mugs, pans, utensils all hang in the kitchen to release space on the worktop. Magnetic knife racks can hold more than knives but vegetable peelers, bottle openers are also to hand on them. Tin can storage – in our case for cutlery but in offices these can make really useful pen pots. Corners are often an area we forget but corner shelves can be invaluable. Our corner shelves built from recycled wood contain our office as well as our water pump.
8. Use 3 Bs – Baskets, Bags and Boxes. They get a lot of necessary items out of the way – providing stylish and brilliant storage in home offices particularly. They can be moved out of the way quickly, or be permanent fixtures. Hanging baskets and bags can take everything from hats and gloves to files and folders, towels and bathroom items to vegetables obviously depending on the room! Boxes also support organising and operating kitchen shelves. On a practical point it makes it easier to find things things if for example all the sauces are in a single box. As we discovered this week it’s also easier to empty a cupboard fast when you have to if things are in boxes! We had a rainstorm which came with a strong south easterly wind. The one window in the boat without secondary glazing is in the kitchen, above the store cupboard. Such was the force of the rain that the drains around the window got blocked and water came in. By dragging out the boxes from the shelves rapid clean up was enabled, and once the rain abated a screwdriver removed the debris from the drains so all is well at the moment and the only damage was to a container of coffee. It’s good to be kept on your toes!
9. Review regularly – once you’ve organised an area, see how it works and tweak/change it until it does. I’ve had a spate of MS Teams or Zoom meetings in the past week and been struck how many people have identified issues with their working space, and said these have been issues for what is now nearly a year! If a space isnt working well for you, either as a work or home environment, sort it so it does work to reduce the constant distraction it creates. By using effective storage to compartmentalise we can hide away the office in our leisure time or bring the office to the fore in work time. In our case this is also about seasonal use – our limited space is making us efficient about reviewing what goes in storage when. At the moment summer clothes and summer outdoor furniture is in store to be swapped with bulky winter clothes when we can – that’ll be a day of celebration!
10. Remember it’s about YOU. Your space must work for you. What works for one person may not work for another. If you like things colour coded – color code them – it will give you pleasure and also support putting things back in the place you’ve designated. I have learned that I need storage that makes sure the things I use regularly are easily accessible because if they are then I get them out and put them away easily. It’s the putting back which is crucial – if it’s too complex to put them back then they get left out and clutter results.

An additional storage for us is our roof – perhaps your patio space or garage is a comparison. The roof at the moment is our fuel store and has other travel essentials on it like a net for fishing out rubbish from the cut, and barge poles which we use for pushing the boat away from obstructions or shallow water. As the seasons change it will become our garden – enhanced by the many valuable comments and advice shared by readers to a recent post. It has been glorious to watch the days lengthen, and know we are heading towards summer, towards a time when we will live differently with out boat and our space again. That brings me to the next quandry – finding the space now to start seeds and chit my seed potatoes… now what can I move to create the space I need?