Shoshana is a Galilean "Noah ark like" home located in a village called Klil about 20 kilometers from the Mediterranean Sea in the north of Israel. We brought her to Klil in early 2017 on a truck and she is our home when we are in Israel.
Shoshana is a 14-meter-long Goulet style wooden boat that sank in a storm many years ago and was salvaged. her previous owner has started to renovate her thinking of returning her to the water but it turned out that it would be too much of a job and he decided to put her for sale. when we saw Shoshana for the first time, old and messy, standing along on the dock we knew immediately that she will be our new home, we purchased it.
We brought her to Klil and for several months we worked and renovated it to make it our new home. Every detail in the renovation process of such a boat must be taken into account since there is not too much space, the main issue is the efficiency and optimal utilization of space. The area under the beds, sofas and along the curved walls are used as storage spaces, shading curtains were made for maximum insulation and are precisely fitted to the windows we assembled reducing the heat entering the boat. It is a hot and humid in the Israeli summer.
Over the time we added one more section that connects to the boat so in total our living space now is about 60 square meters.
The idea of moving to a small house from a comfortably large house (at that time we lived in a house size more than 300 square meters) was the understanding that our needs changed, the children have grown and left the house and our desire to travel has led us to the decision that we want a house that does not need much care and maintenance, and also require less Expenses maintaining it.
We chose Klil because this village is a very green oriented place that suited our state of mind.
Moving from such a big house to a tiny one such as Shoshana required us to get rid of most of our belonging simply because we had no space for them, and since our village is not connected to the country electricity grid (by choice), most of our electrical appliances cannot be operated anyway.
There is something very purifying in passing on things that are loved and are no longer needed.
As for electricity, we produce it for ourselves using solar panels and batteries. Since it is not a lot made daily It requires us to be constantly attentive to electricity consumption and of course to the weather, especially to the clouds. In terms of purchasing new home appliances, the efficiency and energy consumption of the appliances are always double checked and purchased accordingly.
Since there is no central sewage system in Klil, we also had to think of what to do with the wastewater that is created and how to do it without contaminating the soil.
We built a system that stores the sewage water and filters the water into a pool called "wetland” that evaporate the waste water leaving no odor using aquatic plants that have been planted there that grow beautify and also filter and evaporate the used water.
Hot water for our needs are made using the sun energy.
We have built our little paradise that is more than livable.
