An Island couple is making waves with their creative solution to affordable housing.
Danielle Tate-Stratton and Toryn Sundstrom’s journey to creating their own cabin on the water came as a result of the south island’s red hot real estate market.
“I mean anybody who lives in Victoria is of course familiar with housing costs, so we’d be lying if we said that wasn’t an aspect,” says Tate-Stratton.
“We had a sailboat before and we really loved the sail boat, we know people who live on boats and so we knew that was something we wanted to do.”
After some online sleuthing the pair narrowed their search down to a motorized lifeboat, and when a friend tipped them off to a B.C. Ferries unit that was for sale, it was time for a road trip.
“Our friend knew we were looking and he was just scrolling through Craigslist and saw an ad,” says Tate-Stratton.
“Fortunate for us B.C. Ferries was having to sell off their lifeboats and the next day we were on the ferry and going over to Delta to have a look.”
From that day on each step of the project has been documented on the couple’s YouTube channel as well as the struggles of trying to fit all the trappings of home inside such a small vessel.
“There’s been so much research into how to do things and deciding which way we wanted to lean,” says Sundstrom.
“The actual doing of it seems almost an afterthought.”
Tate-Stratton and Sundstrom hope to have Luja the life boat out on the water by 2022. To follow their progress, visit the Living on a Lifeboat website.
Danielle Tate-Stratton and Toryn Sundstrom are turning a former BC Ferries lifeboat into a floating home. (CHEK News)
Cole Sorenson
