Budget Houseboat - By Hal Kelly. Budget Houseboat is like a camper that goes on water. She is 20 ft. long with a 9-ft beam. containing 300 sq. ft. of usable floor area. This means that while she can accommodate two in outrageous comfort. she can easily take a family of four on an extended vacation and be entirely self contained. When we first thought of doing a story on a little trailerable houseboat you could build yourself we thought it a pretty good idea. Little did we know then that it wouldn't be until we'd finished, looked at what we had, then toted up the cost at building that we’d realize just how good an idea it really was. If we weren’t so modest we could claim our Budget Houseboat to be the best thmg in boats since girls. It has so many good features it's difficult to decide where to begin.