Giving an old boathouse a second life

Some projects start with an empty site. The Sandhamn Boathouse started with a building the owners had known all their lives. It stood on the shore with its feet almost in the water, red-brown and slightly crooked, used for little more than storing oars and life jackets. The roof leaked and parts of the floor gave way underfoot.

The family did not want a new house. They wanted to sleep in the boathouse.

Survey before design

With any renovation, the condition of the building sets the budget more than the design does. So before we drew anything, we surveyed the boathouse board by board with a carpenter. We marked what could stay, what needed repair and what had to be replaced.

The result was better than expected. The trusses were sound apart from a few ends that had rotted where water had stood. Most of the wall boards could be saved. The floor and the roof could not.

Repair first, add second

We set a simple rule for the project. Anything that could be repaired would be repaired. New parts would be honest about being new, but quiet enough to let the old building lead.

• The old trusses were cleaned, and the damaged ends were spliced with new pine

• The wall boards were taken down, numbered, repaired and put back in the same place

• A new zinc roof replaced the leaking one, with a thin edge that keeps the old profile

• The floor was rebuilt on new joists, lifted slightly above the highest water

On the outside the boathouse kept its colour. We had the paint matched to the old one, so from the water it looks almost as it always did.

One new opening

The only real change to the building is a single large window on the water side. We placed it low, at the height of the sea, so that from the bed you look straight out across the water. In the morning the light reflects off the surface onto the old trusses above.

We spent a long time on the size of that window. Larger, and the boathouse would have turned into a glass box. Smaller, and the view would have been a picture rather than a presence. The opening in the end follows the rhythm of the old boards, so it reads as part of the wall.

Inside, old and new side by side

The interior is simple. A sleeping area, a small bathroom, shelves for books and a bench under the window. New surfaces are heat-treated pine and oiled oak, chosen to sit beside the old timber without imitating it. Where old and new boards meet, we left the joint visible.

A small project with a long life

The boathouse has a living area of just 96 square metres and took eleven months to complete, much of it spent waiting for the right weather to work on the roof. It is one of the smallest projects we have taken on, and one of the ones we are asked about most.

Perhaps that is because it answers a question many families have. What do you do with a building you love that no longer works? In our experience, the answer is rarely to start again.