A 27-year-old firefighter opted to purchase and renovate a 49ft formerly sunken narrowboat for £15,000 instead of contending with the “mad” housing market.
El Sutcliffe, based in Burton-on-Trent, East Staffordshire, bought her first house with her former partner in Birmingham in 2022 – but after their relationship broke down and they sold the property, she found herself with £15,000 to work with.
Faced with the prospect of buying a one-bedroom flat in a “rough part” of the area, El decided instead to purchase a narrowboat for £15,750 in May 2024, where the living space is less than 20 square metres, the entire boat needed gutting as it had sunk previously, and there was “no flooring”.
Despite the scale of work required, for which El budgeted £10,000 solely for the interior, she has spent the best part of a year kitting out the space, fitting a log burner and a fully-functioning kitchen with a fridge, a sink and a gas cooker, and just the bathroom and a few finishing touches are left to complete.
El has been sharing her renovation journey on TikTok to highlight the reality of living on a narrowboat – she said she would be “heartbroken” to move on from the home she has created, but feels videos showing “gorgeous boats going through stunning parts of the British countryside” do not show the whole picture.
“It just seemed like a no-brainer and I don’t have any regrets, I think the housing market is all a bit mad,” El, who works as a full-time firefighter, told PA Real Life.
“I could never afford to live where I do if I didn’t live on a boat.
“Things can change and your work can move – with a house, that’s a lot of paperwork and a lot of stress.
“With the boat, I can up and move it, and I can access a lot of the waterways here in the UK, it can come with me wherever I end up.”
El purchased her first house in Birmingham in 2022 with her former partner, but after the relationship broke down, they made the decision to sell the property.
“I came out of that with about £15,000 and I was looking at what I could afford,” she said.
“I could have got a one-bed flat in quite a rough part of Birmingham where I would have had to pay ground rent, maintenance fees and things like that.
“I’d always liked the idea of living on the boat but I was running out of time, I needed to figure something out.”
El said one of her work colleagues mentioned she knew someone selling a narrowboat, but it came with a warning as it would need a lot of work.
“It had no flooring, it had sunk previously, it was all very questionable – but I thought ‘what have I got to lose?'”
El purchased her 49ft narrowboat for £15,750 in May 2024, which she said was a lot less than the average price due to its condition.
She set herself a budget of £10,000 to put towards the interior renovations, which she takes from her wages every month, and got to work fixing up her new home.
With the help of her parents, Helen and Haydn, 58 and 61 respectively, El has now installed a log burner with a chimney, a fully-functioning kitchen with a gas cooker, a fridge and a sink, and she has put up walls to section off the area to create a bedroom.
“Everything had to come out, we had to take it back to bare metal, rust-treat it all, it had to be fully insulated, we put in new ceilings, new flooring,” she said.
To complete the interior, El now needs to install another wall to create a section for the bathroom, which will include a toilet, a shower and a sink, as well as finishing the painting and the decorating.
For the exterior, she estimates the existing paintwork will need to be removed entirely but as she has been quoted £12,500 to have it done professionally, it is another job she will be taking on herself.
“I can’t see myself getting rid of it – it would absolutely break my heart because we’ve built it from the ground up,” she said.
“It’s not been all sunshine and roses, I’ve banged my head against walls, I’ve stormed off crying and sat in my car going ‘is this a terrible idea?’
“But now it’s nearly done, I love it.”
At present, El estimates it will cost her around £550 a month to moor and maintain the boat once the renovations are complete – although this will not include any costly repair jobs.
“They require maintenance work which can be expensive, like taking them out of the water and blackening the hull to protect it, repainting, getting the engine serviced, things like that,” she said.
Despite the low living costs, El said living on a narrowboat can be a mixed bag.
“I’m moored in a stunning spot, I’ve got amazing neighbours and the boating community is fantastic,” she said.
“There are some parts which are hard, it’s such a small living space, it works out less than 20 square metres, so the storage is a nightmare.
“I had to get rid of a lot of clothes but I seem to have settled into it really well.”
El has been sharing her renovation journey on TikTok with the aim of highlighting the realistic process of living on a narrowboat.
“People will comment ‘oh my god, this is my dream lifestyle’ and TikTok videos will show gorgeous boats going through stunning parts of the British countryside,” she said.
“It’s like that about 10% of the time and I think that needs to be spoken about more.
“Especially now when people are looking for cheaper ways of living and it’s becoming all the more popular, people need to make informed decisions.”
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