Maybe it's a pipe dream, and it's probably not all it's cooked up to be, but I sometimes fantasize about living on the water, in a (beautifully decorated) barge or a péniche and slowly discover Europe, one river at a time. The following pictures have a lot to do with it.
They are taken from a book I love by Joanna Copestick called Family Home. A book published in 1998 but that doesn't bear a wrinkle. One of the homes featured is a barge in Amsterdam owned by Pauline Van Der Heijen and Goos Drenth. Does anyone know if the barge still exist today?
The boat has (had?) six small rooms, one of them Pauline's studio (she's an artist). I love the colors and the ease of this place. The kitchen is as cute as a button and it all looks so cozy. The beds make me want to curl up and be gently rocked by the water. It makes me want to slowww- dowwwn.
A baby! I miss babies.
To me, this is what happiness looks like.
To live at the rythm of a baby's pace, with no place to rush to, no agenda. Ahhh, the nostalgia.
how gorgeous!
Posted by: pia | February 12, 2008 at 02:52 AM
It's so beautiful !!!!
Posted by: nutella | February 12, 2008 at 06:43 AM
I have always wanted to take a barge through France. I get terribly sea sick but I think I could cope on a canal.
Posted by: Di Overton | February 12, 2008 at 11:11 AM
how cool. i might be claustrophobic, but i love the idea of this. have you heard of that floating hotel in sweden? i just read about it in Travel & Leisure magazine. it's cherry red and sits in a lake. there's a terrace and the bedrooms are downstairs, under the water. there is an inflatable boat you can paddle to town!
Posted by: joanna goddard | February 12, 2008 at 02:38 PM
What a Cool post corinne! Love all of the colors. Definitely a different way of living :)
Posted by: Alkemie | February 12, 2008 at 09:14 PM
aw..so cute, loved to live in one too, even for a short time :)
Posted by: M.Kate | February 12, 2008 at 11:58 PM
We have a baby staying with us at the moment and I forgotten how deeply irritating all the dropping things on the floor and swiping things off tables can be.
Definitely more missable in the abstract and in cute pics like these.
Posted by: paola | February 13, 2008 at 12:42 AM
Hello, I don't know to whom I am writing to at this moment, but the woman at the pictures is me, The boat was my home. My husband googled on his name, Goos Drenth, and found this site with our pictures. The pictures where tooken in the summer of 1997, when our daughter Guusje was just a baby, now she is 12 years old. We sold the boat in 1998, after 8 years on the water we moved to an very old farm. A lovely place with a big garden. We got 3 more children. We heared that the boat no longer has its colors, as it had at the time we lived there. We made our new home such as cosy as the boat was befor. A lots of colors and cosy corners. Greetings from Pauline van der Heijden (paulinevanderheijden@live.nl)
Posted by: Pauline van der Heijden | January 31, 2009 at 01:00 PM