From London Rentals to a £21K Narrowboat: A Life of Extreme Ups and Downs in Malaysia

In 2022, Kyrie Morris felt it was time to put an end to the rising cost of London housing.

Facing difficulty in covering her £1,300 monthly rent, the 33-year-old self-employed journalist from Middlesbrough turned to inherited funds. to purchase a narrowboat priced at £21,000 —and began refurbishing the rundown ‘floating shed’ .

Kyrie’s lease was coming to an end, and although she wished to remain in the city, she struggled to locate a place that was both budget-friendly and pet-friendly for her dog, Snoop.

Having often dreamed of canal living , she decided to take the leap when her grandfather passed away and left her some funds, choosing the least expensive boat she could locate on Facebook Marketplace

Since it lacked running water, toilets, or electricity, Kyrie was forced to take showers at the gym, power up her phone at her workplace, start fires for heat, and use a headlamp after sunset.

Up until lately, she did not own a refrigerator either, surviving mostly on canned meals heated using a gas camping stove.

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'I’d say it involves experiencing very deep lows, but also incredibly high peaks,' she explains. 'There’s this sense of liberation and thrill that I have not encountered elsewhere, and I truly adore it.'

Kyrie has invested around £12,000 so far in refurbishing the boat. This includes connecting solar panels to 12-volt batteries for power, installing a diesel heater for warm water, and fitting a cassette toilet that she needs to empty herself.

Even though the renovation of the kitchen and bathroom is not complete yet, she has also updated the flooring, repainted everywhere, and installed a fold-down sofa bed to enhance the coziness of the area.

Even though it remains 'quite, quite fundamental,' Kyrie's newly acquired floating home has provided her with newfound benefits. to reduce her expenses on necessities approximately £800 per month -- covering boat license, insurance, and meals.

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However, it hasn’t been smooth sailing all along.

A little more than a year since she started exploring the waterways of London, Kyrie decided that she 'craved a change', thus quitting her work in the hospitality sector to undertake a 357-mile voyage from London to Leeds, which took her seven weeks.

She intended to reside in Leeds and pursue her musical and literary endeavors, but soon after arriving, the vessel's engine malfunctioned, necessitating that it be docked at a marina until it could be hauled to a repair facility in Goole. As a result, Kyrie and Snoop have been obliged to stay in this East Yorkshire coastal town for the last half-year.

To make matters worse, in January 2025, Kyrie accidentally knocked over a candle, sending the curtains up in flames.

‘Within 30 seconds, the whole side of my boat was on fire,’ she says. ‘I got the dog off and… I used the first extinguisher, the whole wall was engulfed at this stage.’

After using up two more fire extinguishers and numerous buckets of water, she managed to put the fire out. But while third of the boat was damaged, and the ceiling, woodwork and paintwork had to be replaced, the fire did not hit the electrics, and she didn’t lose anything valuable.

Kyrie recalls: ‘I came out thanking my lucky stars… it messed me up for a little while – when I saw the flames on my stove my heart started to go.

'I believe it might have been a form of PTSD, but gradually, that has faded away. Now, I'm fine, but I've developed a different attitude towards candles.'

Despite the difficulties, Kyrie has no intentions of returning to a conventional house anytime soon.

In the days to come, she aims to keep residing aboard her boat and traversing through the UK, with plans to share her adventures on social media platforms as she proceeds.

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