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The Houseboat

Name: Land's End

Style: Floating home

Dimensions: 42 feet x 24 feet

The Land's End floating home is a 42 x 24 feet two leveled registered vessel.

All external “houseboat” scenes where filmed at the actual houseboat itself with the downstairs bathroom being used as a dressing room during filming of those scenes. The internal Houseboat scenes were filmed on a sound stage set which had a number of differences to the real interior of the boat; The most obvious being that the kitchen and lounge areas where opposite to the real boats interior. After filming had completed it was moved from its filming location of Coal Harbor to Richmond Marina and from there to the private marina it’s now docked in.

Floatation is achieved by 3 x 36 inch diameter steel pontoons which run the length of the home and are filled with injected “expanding” foam. Styrofoam blocks are also fitted between the pontoons for additional floatation.

The ground level has a hardwood floor with 3 sections of the floor cleverly built and set to be almost invisible, which can be removed to access the pontoons (and see the water below). If needed, this is where a pump hose could be inserted to allow the pontoons to be pumped out. This ground level is also where we find the most noticeable difference between the on-screen interior and the real interior. The real interior has the kitchen and lounge area reversed to what we see on screen. We do actually get a couple of glimpses of this in the episodes “Legend of the Holy Rose” where we can see the kitchen counter through the open French doors, and the episode “Serenity” we see the empty lounge area where MacGyver’s kitchen should be.

The upstairs area is built off-square to the bottom floor of the house. Much like two blocks on top of each other with the top one skewed like an 8 pointed star, allowing for enough room for the Master bedroom and shower/bathroom as well as an office or working area.

Since its days of being used to film MacGyver the Houseboat has been overhauled and renovated with notable changes including the small “garden” window being moved from the “kitchen” end of the house to the side wall where we saw the bookshelves in the show and the outside being painted blue.

Click on the thumbnails below to see larger images as we go on a photographic tour of the Houseboat and see how it looks today.

From the outside

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Front View showing new paint job and an added window to the front wall.	Back View Shows the extra space used for upper and lower bathroom and laundry area.	End View we can see the upstairs bathroom window to the left and the open bedroom window to the right.	Floatation Styrofoam blocks fitted between the floatation pontoons for extra buoyancy

Front of house Showing french doors and front side of the house	French Doors Front porch and end of house.	Front of the House Great shot of the front side of the house with new paint and added window.	With Trellis Trellis allows privacy and sun shade on the main porch.


Floatation Pontoons Closer view of the “expanding” foam filled pontoons	Back View You can clearly see the upstairs bathrooms sliding door and mini balcony.	Storage Room Door Blue door leads to small storage room. Good shot of floatation pontoons

Bathroom Door View of the upstairs Bathrooms sliding door leading onto mini balcony	Bay Windows These were seen as MacGyver's kitchen windows, but are actually the lounge widows.	Front Door Leading into the lounge area with blue storage room door to the right.

Inside - Downstairs

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Kitchen We can see here that the kitchen and dining room are opposite to what we saw in the MacGyver set with the kitchen located where MacGyver's fireplace was.	Dining Room Looking from the kitchen we can see what the real staircase looks like, and beyond that we can see a fireplace sits where we saw the kitchen on the MacGyver set.	Shelving Area Here we can see cupboards and a desk area where the MacGyver set had shelves running the length of the lounge. We can also see a new window has been added.

Lounge The lounge is situated where we saw MacGyver’s kitchen and dining room area.	Bay Window The tri-windows which where regularly seen at the end of MacGyver’s kitchen bench are actually the lounge bay windows..	Fire place The fire place is located next to the door, where we saw MacGyver's fridge in the show.

Downstairs Toilet The downstairs toilet is located behind the lounge area. .	Downstairs Toilet The downstairs toilet also houses the laundry area.	Downstairs Toilet This was used as a dressing room during filming of external scenes.

Inside - Upstairs

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Stairway Landing Looking at the stairway landing from about where MacGyver's bed would have been.	Half wall This half-wall is where we saw MacGyver's stairway landing in the few upstairs scenes we get to see.	MacGyvers Bedroom This is looking at about where MacGyver's bed would have been in the show.	MacGyvers Bedroom The other end of the bedroom shows the distinctive Bay windows.

MacGyvers Bedroom This end of the bedroom is much smaller than it was shown on the shows filming set.	The Shower Here we finally get to see where the shower is. Although in MacGyver's house, it would have been more to the right.	Master Bedroom This room is never shown in the series, and probably wasn't even present in the filming set.	Master Bedroom Located over the area we saw as being the lounge (but in real life is the kitchen).


Master Bedroom This small triangle window looks down onto the decking in front of the french doors below.	Master Bedroom Looking at the other end of the bedroom we can see the main skylights through the bedroom window.	Master Bedroom Looking out from the bedroom we get a sense of the upstairs layout where we can see the skylight,stairs landing and "MacGyver" bedroom.


	Upstairs Bathroom The master bathroom with navy soaker tub and stained triangle window.	Upstairs Bathroom Sliding door leads from the master bathroom out to a mini-porch.

Discuss these photos and the houseboat here

Thank You to the owners of the houseboat for providing photos and answering an endless supply of questions