Museum employee turns tug into home sweet home

Standing in her kitchen, Laura Phillips often finds herself jostled by the wake of a passing boat.

The tiny swells cause the fruit basket to sway, which in turn reminds her of the buoyant nature of her dream home. Phillips and her husband, Eric Rasmussen, live on a refurbished 1924 tugboat. In its former life, the boat hauled logs on the Columbia River, but the couple has since - to the chagrin of some and fascination of others - turned it into a two-bedroom, two-bath rare slice of the American dream.

Laura Phillips stands in front of the tugboat she and her husband live in. The couple has spent the last five years renovating the 1924 tug. They officially moved in in February.

“Most people think it’s curious. They’re intrigued,” Phillips, a collections manager at the Burke Museum, says while walking by her raised garden beds on the narrow dock that leads to her floating home. “A lot say it’s something they would never do, but they think it’s interesting that we’re doing it. Some people say they couldn’t do it because you need to have a limited wardrobe. Some people say they couldn’t do it because there’d be no space for all their trinkets. And then there are some people who just think we’re weird.”

Some may question their state of mind, but there’s no denying that Phillips and Rasmussen have a home that, while cramped compared to the average land-locked estate, has a distinct charm. It wasn’t always so endearing. The couple has come a long way in the five years they’ve been working to turn their boat into home sweet home.

Despite being in her fourth month of pregnancy, Phillips eagerly lifts a section of the linseed oil- and cork-based kitchen floor, climbing below to show off the boat’s spotless bilge - the equivalent of a basement in the standard home. When Phillips and Rasmussen began their refurbishing project about five years ago the area was filled with black muck, mostly oil that had been dumped underneath.

“If things were in the way, people just dumped them into the bilge.”

Below that, boards were rotting, the boat was leaking and damage from a previous fire had left one of the upper decks unstable.

So Phillips and her husband began the painstaking process of cleaning up and repairing what they could with the boat in water. Then, in October 1998, they took a gamble. After arranging to “haul out” - lift the boat from water to dry land - at Seaview Boatyard where they would assess the boat’s structural condition and complete needed repairs, they started the newly rebuilt engine and hoped the boat was seaworthy enough to make the short voyage to Ballard. It was the first time the boat had left the dock since Rasmussen bought it in 1990, five years before the couple was married.

“It was scary,” Phillips recalls while pointing to sections of the boat that began leaking during the trip. They had a pump, but the rotting stern was letting water in faster than they could pump it out. “Water was coming in everywhere. But we got there.”

They hauled out and spent 45 cold, wet days craning their necks up at the boat’s bottom side while standing under a plastic tarp that offered some protection from the weather and kept their debris confined to one manageable space. It was a dismal scene, but productive. The couple successfully reconstructed the keel and stern in addition to recaulking the entire boat, a process Phillips hopes won’t have to be repeated for at least 30 years.

But they’ve also invested a lot of creative energy into the 58-foot boat they call Newt - a name given to honor the memory of Rasmussen’s pet salamanders. It took a certain eye to transform a logging and fishing boat into a home.

“People really couldn’t envision it,” Phillips says. “They would recognize what we meant when we said we’re going to make our boat a live-aboard. They understood the concept but I don’t think they understood what it would embody, what it would mean. They didn’t understand how home-like it would be.”

It’s easy to see today.

Where once there was a head, or bathroom, now sits a roomy queen-sized bed with wall-mounted light fixtures that are both functional and reminiscent of the 1920s, when the boat was brand new. Rather than the utilitarian head, Phillips and Rasmussen now have two relatively elegant bathrooms with wall-to-wall ceramic tile and an antique tub. They’ve also added three skylights, more room in an aft cabin the previous owners had built, and all new wooden cabinetry throughout. There’s a washer and dryer and radiator heat. They even added a heated floor.

“I’m an archaeologist, so I like that kind of hands-on work,” Phillips said. “I like labor. Scraping and painting, that part comes naturally to me. Dumping a bunch of money into a hole doesn’t come so naturally.”

But, even combining the purchase price and all the improvements they’ve made to the boat, their investment is on the short side of $100,000. For a home within walking distance of the UW campus, or anywhere in Seattle, that’s an enviable bargain.

And best of all, “We live in a house that moves,” Phillips says.

In fact, they’ve taken several short jaunts throughout Seattle lakes since they officially moved aboard in February after renting another boat during the five-year refurbishing project. They made it to the Wooden Boat Festival on Lake Union, where their tile bathrooms were a big hit with the other boating enthusiasts. They plan to travel to the San Juan Islands in September. It will be their first trip of any great length in the boat.

When they’re not traveling in it, they like to share the boat with friends.

“It’s great for entertaining,” Phillips says.

And in a few months, they’ll be sharing the home with their newest family member. They’re still working on the finishing touches of the baby’s room. But Phillips is confident that not even a baby is going to rock their boat.

“I think kids are very flexible, but if we decide it doesn’t work out, then it doesn’t work out and we’ll just move into a different home.” ¶

Steve Hill