My Floating Home - Episode Guide

In this new series, presenter Mark Evans charts the exploits of individuals, couples and families who aspire to leave landlocked suburbia behind to live in stunning aquatic homes that float on water. This opening episode meets Mark and Holly in Chichester, as they design, build, launch and furnish a unique floating home in an area of outstanding natural beauty. They want to design a ground-breaking floating house in the middle of all the narrowboats and pleasure cruisers moored along the Chichester riverbank. The design has unique features, such as cedar baffles that prevent outsiders looking in, and a beautiful mezzanine leading to a rooftop deck-space for socialising. But transporting the boat's superstructure to Chichester in one piece and on time proves a challenge. And then they must fit it all together.

Mark Evans meets Dwayne and Janet, who have a dream to design and build an experimental oversized houseboat, so they can take their home with them anywhere on the vast network of UK canals. Never having lived on the water before - nor even driven a boat - taking the plunge with building their own floating home from scratch is a huge challenge. Also, water-loving couple Lydia and Wout live on an old steamship and have decided it's time to modernise and join a small community of floating homes on a canal south of Amsterdam. Will they be able to get their spectacular home, with its wraparound deck, to its mooring?

Mark Evans follows British-born Steve King and his friend Rick Keith, who meet up in Maine, New England, every year to restore old boats. Now Steve wants to make his own tiny floating home - and, by using recycled materials, he plans to spend no more than ú7000 on it. There's also Michelle Lanker and Bill Bloxom - outdoor-loving environmentalists who want to make a floating home with a breathtaking design: the curved roof of their boat will be covered in grass and solar panels. They also plan a huge underwater basement, with a window looking out into the fishy waters below. But making the window thick enough to withstand the elements proves a real struggle.

Mark Evans follows two couples building homes on the water, including one that features a three-storey layout complete with sun decks.

Shirley and Russ want to join a community of 600 floating homes in Canada. They're set on a luxury ranch-style floating home with wraparound decks, but the launch is hair-raising - one slip and it will be a disaster. Also, Glenn and Margaret build a nautically themed floating home with a high barrel ceiling in a marina on Vancouver's north shore.

Mark Evans meets Milt and Judi Taylor, who want to swap their Oregon apartment for a floating home in the forests around Portland.

Susan Dunn is passionate about building a stunning floating home using the latest in contemporary design in Seattle, Washington. And Harry Janzen and Tina McComb dream of a massive three-storey wilderness retreat.

In the opening episode - after 30 years of living on the River Itchen in Southampton, Gerald Pragnell sets out to build an extraordinary futuristic fibreglass home, designed and made on his doorstep by his 27-year-old son Aidan. It's constructed from scratch by carefully building up layers of fibreglass to create two hollow hull sections. Gerald visits the job site often, adding luxury details to the design and keeping the pressure on his son, but all in good humour! So will Gerald end up the proud owner of a unique modern home that he wants - and thank Aidan for a job well done?

In episode two, adventurous young professionals Ani Ridley and Charles Anderson are taking on the project of a lifetime: they've bought a rusty old oil barge 'The Duchess 1910' that they want to turn into their rustic first home. Based on the Thames in Hampton, south-west London, the couple have a tight budget that leaves them no option but to do nearly all the work themselves. With no experience, are they biting off more than they can chew? Can they make some big savings by trying to make the stove, interiors and wheelhouse themselves?

Valentin Martin and Daria Cabai run their own naval architecture company in London. Their dream is to escape their cramped apartment with their young son Yves and instead live on the Thames in their own floating home. They create their own design, converting a century-old barge into a three-tiered contemporary floating apartment. The commission is given to a specialist boat building company in the Netherlands, a country that knows a thing or two about living on the water. The biggest challenge is moving Valentin and Daria's finished new home back to London. The renovated barge must travel 290 miles across the North Sea - and some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. After a hair-raising journey they finally make it back to England, where their eye-catching floating apartment becomes a new attraction next to Tower Bridge.

An ambitious barge conversion on the River Medway hits stormy weather and rising tides. And there's a deluxe home in the Netherlands with cool underwater bedrooms.

London-based Karen Boswell decides to design and build a stylish houseboat to moor near the Grand Union Canal. She's gone to town on her modern industrial bathroom design, indulging in a set of twin showers as well as a bath. But space becomes a problem for the build team, who are tasked with constructing Karen's rather large bed. In Portland, Oregon, fed up with her cramped city apartment, Marsha Olson sets out to build a spacious two-storey floating home on the idyllic Multnomah Channel. Will the dramatic 10-month build prove worth the effort?

Now their children have left home, Allen Lacroix and Jill Gamblen want to create a new home - one that floats on the Annacis Channel, just south of Vancouver, Canada. Their million dollar mansion will feature three outside decks; a luxury master bedroom; and a huge hot tub with amazing views. The build and the launch prove challenging. In Seattle, Joan Rosenstock is sinking her savings into a pair of brand new floating mansions with high-end finishes. The mansions must make a perilous 150-mile sea voyage in the middle of winter - before a team of tugs ease them into their moorings, as the luxury interiors finally come together.

This time, an amphibious refurb and a 360-degree sweep in Canada

A boat lover creates a micro riverpod in Kent. In Portland, Oregon, Jan and Don design a floating summer house with an open-plan living space

The return of the series following people who aspire to live in stunning homes that float on water. Classical pianists Masayuki Tayama and Rhiana Henderson have a dream of combining their two passions, music and canal cruising. So they are risking Masayuki's life savings to commission a one-of-a-kind floating home that is also a concert hall - and a hotel.

Newly retired 55-year-old boating enthusiast Colin Stewart, who survived a heart attack 15 years ago, is embarking on a bold life adventure. He is planning to spend half the year cruising Britain's waterways on a high-spec narrowboat, called Tickin Along.

Trish Urquhart and Richard Beynon have fallen in love with the UK's waterways through many years of holidaying in their own narrowboat. Now the couple have made the radical decision to sell their house in South Africa and build a bespoke floating home in Bedfordshire.

Jeroen and Lianne Gels are stepping onto the property ladder in Amsterdam. In seven months, they plan to turn a 254-ton industrial cement carrier into their dream waterborne home.

Young entrepreneur Harry Smith sets out to convert a 1970s canal boat that he bought during his student days - but he only has £1,000 to bring this modest vessel up to date.

Aart Simons and Nanouk Kropman met through a love of sailing. To fulfil their shared dream of living on water, they have bought a disused 1950s Dutch cargo ship - but transforming this old hunk of metal will be a logistical, financial and emotional ride of a lifetime.

For 35 years, Netherlands fisherman Jan de Boer has spent his working week at sea, with weekends on dry land in the large family home where he and his wife Geja raised their six children. But now, Jan and Geja are ready for a new adventure, building a custom-designed floating home that will be part of a pioneering aquatic village.

After 30 years of marriage, North American couple Kurt and Roberta are ready for a new adventure. They have sold their Seattle home and are sinking the equivalent of over half a million pounds into an enormous, uber-modern waterborne home on Vancouver Island's east coast.

More stories of people trying to build their dream home on the water. Suffolk boatyard specialists Mary and Simon's dream is a futuristic aquatic pod.

Alan and Val McCoy put their life savings on the line to make their dream of living on water come true, entrusting a boat builder to make them their dream narrow boat floating home. The couple have been together for 11 years and now that they're retired, they've decided that owning a narrow boat could be a unique way to be near their families - all of whom live along the canal system across the Midlands and north-west England.

This edition charts the exploits of Pat and Sue Willan, who now retired plan to buy their very last floating home, which they hope to keep moored on the Thames. They have enlisted the help of a boat-maker in Stoke and opted for a 35-tonne, 55-foot state-of-the-art, all-mod-cons Dutch barge. They have a healthy budget of over £400,000 and elaborate plans for very contemporary kitchen fittings and gadgets and a powerful hydraulic engine.

South African-born Linda, her husband Mark and Coco the cat share a one-bedroom floating home on Tagg's Island in Hampton, Surrey. It's an idyllic location, but their home is also their workplace and it's starting to feel a bit cramped. The couple want to stay put in their exclusive location, so Linda has hatched an ambitious plan to buy the boat next door and do it up all by herself. It's a huge challenge and it remains to be seen whether enthusiasm and passion will be enough to get the job done.

Metal worker John Lloyd search for his own, affordable home has led him to floating homes on the Medway in Kent. John has spent almost all of his funds on a boat that is going to need a lot of work, from rotting timber to a total refurb. His father Pete helps out, as their combined skills with repurposing and reclaiming prove that almost anything is possible.

Retired customs officer Keith has been living and working in New Zealand for 25 years. Now, he wants to return to the UK for part of the year and go touring the waterways of the UK with his wife Pam. He's commissioning a brand-spanking-new semi-cruiser narrowboat complete with all the latest gadgets. However, Keith has never owned a boat before, let alone skippered or crewed a narrowboat, so he needs to learn very quickly.

Mark Evans follows Heike and Torsten Birke on an adventure designing and building a novel floating home - from the factory in Havelberg to testing it out on the German waterways.

Londoners Lily and Natasha are in their mid-twenties and keen to get onto the property ladder. Currently renting a one-bed flat in east London, they have impulsively decided to buy a 35-year-old narrowboat at a knock-down price that needs considerable work. They are determined to save money and do all the work themselves, but it's a significant challenge as neither has any experience of fixing up - or living on - a boat, let alone any knowledge of plumbing, electrics, fabrication work or anything renovation-relevant.