I mentioned it to my partner Fred and one day, months later, he came home and said he found a company nearby that sold used shipping containers. He was excited to explore building with it as he’s a traditional builder of commercial and residential structures.
2) How/where did you find the shipping container? (I wouldn’t know where to start!) And how much does something like that cost?
We found a company that sold used shipping containers in Newburg, NY (A-Verdi). It’s a 40’ foot container with 9’ high ceilings.
3) Was it hard to get it to your house?
The company delivered it on a flat bed.
(sent you pic)
4) Did you have to prepare the ground first before building the structure?
The first thing was to decide what we were building. We decided we’d build a barn to store construction tools/materials. The hayloft is where we store lumber. Also how useful would it be if it was moveable? We cut it in half to create two 20’ long storage areas with space in the middle for our boat. Before the company delivered the container, we leveled the area and poured Item 4 on top. This is a mix of stone made specifically to be compacted. It’s often used for driveways, parking areas, etc.
(sent you pic cutting container in half and using compacter tool on stone).
5) Where is this on your property?
This is opposite our vegetable garden and can be seen from our kitchen window
6) What inspired the exterior look? Was there a specific barn or images that you looked to?
I designed our vegetable garden fence nodding to chinoiserie and our home is a modern style farmhouse so this structure had to relate to those things. I toyed with doing a Union Jack design on the barn doors but chose this simpler look because there’s a lot going on with the garden fence across the way!
(Sent you pic of barn through fencing)
7) What color is it painted? Are you going to paint the exterior of the containers (inside the barn)? Looks like they’re unpainted based on the pictures.
It’s Benjamin Moore Dash of Pepper and I chose it because it helps the barn blend into the landscape. I also kept the interior cavity walls as is on the shipping container—that color and signage! One of the fun things about a reuse project is seeing at once what it was and what it is.
8) What is the roofing material?
Standing seam metal roof
9) Is it insulated?
It isn’t but we recently decided to turn one of the storage bays into a home gym. We plan to cut a hole on the side facing the creek on our property and we’ll install glass doors. We’ll be insulating it and adding heat.
10) How much did this project cost? Can be ballpark. And would be neat to get a sense of just materials cost vs. labor.
The container cost about $2000. We had leftover stone and wood we used for the construction. The biggest expense was the roof, around 10K. It’s hard to estimate labor as we did it ourselves over a year+ period in between client work.
11) Biggest challenge?
As amazingly sturdy as these structures are, once you cut into it, it needs a good bit of reinforcement. Our barn was never more sturdy than when we built the roof.
12) Biggest surprise?
We move the entire finished structure with chains hooked up to our skid steer. I didn’t expect it to be so light after it was built.
13) What do you use this building for?
Storage for building materials, boat and eventually a home gym
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