Inside Rachel Allen’s wide-beam barge in central London
Released on 01/26/2024
[upbeat jazz music]
[water burbling]
It wasn't a purely romantic decision to live on a barge.
It was an affordable,
but beautiful way to live in Central London.
There's a really lovely community spirit on the Canal.
I'm from the coast in Wales,
and I think it's in our DNA to be close to water.
[smooth jazz music]
People are usually delighted and surprised
when they first step onto the barge.
I think they find things sweet,
and they probably also didn't realize that, you know,
they can look so homely.
It's a wide-beam barge and it's all pretty open plan.
There's just a sitting room, kitchen and dining room,
and then we've got the bedroom and bathroom.
I feel like you have most of your home comforts
living on the barge.
You just have to be a little bit more organized,
filling up with water in the morning,
making sure you catch the diesel man when he's going past.
Living on a barge makes you very resourceful.
I started my design business a couple of years ago,
and I really have Rita Konig to thank
for the small successful start to it.
I worked for Robert Kime in London.
He massively informed everything I do in my career.
I'd say my look is pretty granny chic.
I really wish I was a bit cooler.
My idea was to have a solid hull,
but for all the interiors to be old,
so hopefully it has a bit of charm of an older boat.
The interior color is almost throughout Farrow' & Ball's
Arsenic Green.
This green just makes me really happy,
and I think almost anything on top of it just sings.
This is a old Gillow sofa, which is reupholstered
by Ian Oliver, who makes everything super comfortable.
I've been collecting antique fabrics for years now,
and I love it
because you can just get a small fragment of something
and make it into something lovely.
This is a 19th century Venetian silk.
This is an African Baule fabric from the Ivory Coast.
The colors are perfect for me
because I particularly love blue and green together.
I love this rug. I bought it in the Atlas Mountains.
It's a fluffy Berber rug.
But I lay it on the reverse
because I just think the colors are softer
when the weave is flat.
This is a peacock chair,
which obviously is a completely impractical size for a boat,
but they're so iconic.
I just think they're so cool.
This is a Welsh Turner's chair. I love it.
And because of the lovely carving,
it's a 19th century one,
but I think it cost me about 30 quid.
[upbeat retro music]
I like the dining table in the center of the room
because it's close to the kitchen
to feel part of the action when somebody's cooking
and it's next to the fire.
The wood burner usually comes on in the autumn time,
and it's also nice for heating the kettle as well.
The tiles are a copy of Pugin tiles,
which Robert Kime had in his fireplace,
but I've got the poor man's version
because I couldn't find enough original Pugin tiles,
so I copied them.
And then my little masks are just comedy and tragedy.
I suppose it's a little bit unusual
to find an AGA on a boat, but it's incredibly nifty
because as well as the cooking,
it runs off the diesel engine
and does the heating and the hot water.
Probably the only bit of new kit on the boat.
Because obviously boats are small,
I didn't want a lot of cabinetry.
I want it to feel as light as possible.
That does mean that storage is a struggle,
so everything is visible,
which means that I like everything then to be pretty.
So I like old copper pans, and pretty porcelain,
and antique knives and forks.
There's a very good reclamation yard in Devon
where I got my old brass portholes
and these cool passenger lights
that came from a Mexican passenger ship in the 1950s.
My favorite little treasure on the boat
is this little collection of a shipwreck porcelain
from the Hoi An Hoard.
It's probably lived for about 500 years under the sea.
And this one I just love because it's so sweet
and got little birds on.
I like that the little galley kitchen
is a part of the whole room,
especially for parties and having friends over
because it feels like everybody's in the kitchen
together then.
[upbeat jazz music]
So just walking through from the kitchen
is probably a little bit of a surprise to find
a tin bath.
I think they're designed for dogs,
but they're used by humans here.
It would be nice to have a bigger bath,
but you'd never be able to fill a nice big one
because the hot water tank is so small.
When I built the boat, there was no shower.
This was the only way of washing.
After a while, when I saved up a bit more dosh,
then put the shower in afterwards.
I've got some lovely modern British pictures
that are sold by my friend Geoff Everson,
and actually these are really the colors
of the landscape of Wales.
And I'm glad to have a nice bit of campaign furniture
on the boat.
It's at home here. It was my grandfather's.
I remember seeing it in his bedroom
and it was his grandfather's.
So yeah, it's got a lot of memories.
Box-beds are very typical in canal boats.
This one is boarded with mashrabiya,
which is something not original to me,
something that Robert Kime used a lot that I really like.
It just makes it so pretty and enchanting.
And the good thing about it's that it provides
a lot of storage underneath.
I think my design aesthetic is pretty much my CV.
It's everybody I've worked for,
and every time you work for somebody else,
you pick up a little bit of their style too.
It's Will and Charlotte from Jamb
and definitely Robert with colors and textures.
[smooth jazz music]
I think as you get older,
your identity becomes increasingly important.
Maybe I'd like a little crumbly cottage in Wales someday,
but I, you know, I just love London so much,
I can't see me going back anytime soon.
[upbeat jazz music]
Starring: Rachel Allen
Design notes: Rachel Chudley
Design Notes: Maria Speake
Inside Flora Soames' peaceful woodland cottage | Design Notes
Christmas in the Cotswolds with Amanda Brooks
Design Notes: Matilda Goad
Nicky Haslam gives an intimate tour of his legendary folly | Design Notes
Nathalie Farman-Farma shows us around her pattern-filled house | Design Notes
Interior designer Alidad shows us around his opulent London flat | Design Notes
Inside Jeremy Langmead's singularly enchanting Suffolk house | Design Notes
A London home that is a chinoiserie wonderland | Design Notes: Hannah Cecil Gurney of De Gournay
How Alexandra Tolstoy made a rental house her own
Design Notes: Beata Heuman
Axel Vervoordt and the extraordinary treasures of Castle 's-Gravenwezel
The Women of Petersham Nurseries
Inside the eclectically furnished house of Gert Voorjans | Design Notes
Design Notes: Gabby Deeming
At home with legendary decorator Robert Kime
The country house 'laboratory' of Sibyl Colefax designer Philip Hooper
At home with Will Fisher and Charlotte Freemantle, the founders of Jamb
Luke Edward Hall and Duncan Campbell's kitsch, colourful Cotswold Christmas
A tour of Rita Konig's English farmhouse
Benedict Foley and Daniel Slowik’s cottage in the Dedham Vale | Design Notes
Zoë Zimmer's stylish, cleverly arranged flat in Notting Hill
Our Designer of the Year Sophie Ashby on decorating her rented Georgian house | Design Notes
Buchanan Studio's airy, romantic house in London | Design Notes
Inside Lucinda Chambers' personality-filled London house | Design Notes
Inside Gavin Houghton's tiny ‘playhouse’ of a cottage in Oxfordshire | Design Notes
At home with Joanna Plant in her comfortable, timeless interiors | Design Notes
Inside Carlos Garcia’s charming 17th-century English country house
Inside Max Rollitt’s fascinating renovated barn filled with exquisite antiques
Inside Skye McAlpine’s Venetian apartment: a 17th-century Italian palace
Inside an 18th-century grand English country house
Inside a fully renovated 19th-century farmhouse
Inside Berdoulat: a history-filled 18th-century shop & house
Inside Olympia & Ariadne Irving's cleverly decorated London rental
Inside Alexandra Tolstoy’s 18th-century Oxfordshire cottage
Inside Blanche Vaughan’s family home in the English countryside
Inside a fully-renovated Scottish farmhouse secluded in The Outer Hebrides
Inside Nina Campbell’s Chelsea townhouse
Inside Veere Grenney's 18th-century Palladian folly
Inside a lavish 17th-century English country retreat
Inside Rachel Allen’s wide-beam barge in central London
Inside a 16th-century farmhouse nestled in the English countryside