Narrowboats with a Bespoke Touch
Narrowboats with a Bespoke Touch
We were asked to create a narrowboat bird box for a local customer in 2014 as a bespoke order and a replica of their own canal boat. As we'd known a few people who loved canal boats or shared one, we knew they'd be a great addition to our range.
We offered the boats in our usual selection of colours and it wasn't long before other canal boat owners wanted one of their own! They're available in lots of colours here.
After making the bird boxes, a customer contacted us to say they thought the size would be perfect for a mini planter to put on a narrowboat or near its mooring and so we created one and then added the design to the website with the same colour choices as the bird boxes. See our mini planters here.
Both became a success. But soon we began to be asked to tweak the design to add elements that were similar to customers' own boats. Small things like a window shape or a door colour were easy to do and we do these sorts of alterations at no additional cost.
Gradually requests got more complicated, with more boat replicas being requested and so we developed our bespoke narrowboat/canal boat service. This involves taking our bird boxes and mini planters and offering a more bespoke paint option. Costs can range from £5-£30 on top of the usual box costs dependent on the amount of design replication a boat requires. Copying boat name lettering can be incredibly time consuming and working in a small scale provides a challenge that a bigger boats don't have - although that is a challenge we love. And you might even see some of our canal boat bird boxes around the West Midlands as we made several for the Canal & River Trust with their logo on!
If you would like a narrowboat with additional elements, please email us with an image prior to ordering so that we can better advise on costs. We always give the full price prior to ordering so there are never any surprises at the end!
Looking for our other bespoke work? Read about it here.
Want to read about our Grand Designs project? Visit Lindleywood Grand Designs