Under a sky of skylights, a home that glows from within.

A long hull, opened up to the sky‍

From the quay she looks like any other Amsterdam houseboat. The surprise starts at the door. Instead of a dim, narrow hull, you look up into a curved ceiling with long skylights running down its length, and cove lighting traces both sides like a horizon. Daylight falls all the way to the far end. Pale concrete floors and soft grey walls follow the curve of the hull, and round portholes at eye level keep the water in view wherever you stand.

A living room you step down into‍

The heart of the boat is a raised platform of wide oak boards. You sit up there on a deep blue velvet sofa, with a teal pouf at your feet, and look down over the dining area one step below. That step does double duty: built-in oak drawers run along its face, so storage disappears into the floor. Where a wall would usually be, a planter of large green plants separates the two levels. A dark steel staircase with oak treads leads up to the deck, and the space beneath it has become a reading nook full of cushions, the kind of corner you only find by wandering in.

Colour, one room at a time‍

Walk on and each room brings its own mood. The kitchen is dusty pink, with a tall wall of cupboards, an island and a built-in wine cabinet, and a round oak table with velvet chairs beside it. In one bedroom the bed sits up on oak steps under its own skylight, so you fall asleep beneath the sky. Another is wrapped in warm taupe from the walls to the ceiling, with a porthole above the bed. The bathroom stays bright white, like a pause between colours. Burnt-orange armchairs turn up in several rooms and tie the story together, and a long hallway ends in a terracotta wall that pulls you through to the end. As with every Woodies, the stairs, cupboards and platforms were built in our own yard to fit this hull and no other.

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