DailyDirt: Living Out Of A Box (Literally)
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
The real estate market hasn't recovered from the financial crisis, and it looks like lots of folks are asking themselves whether or not owning a home is really that important anymore. Cheaper housing options could offer some answers, so here are just a few examples of homes made out of shipping containers.- Shipping containers: a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. Maybe a really fancy shipping container could compete with some mobile homes...? [url]
- Using shipping containers as housing for disaster relief projects sounds like a good idea. But doing so might attach a certain stigma to shipping container homes. [url]
- IKEA hopes you'll furnish your new shipping container home with its products... Some assembly required. [url]
- Forget the one laptop per child for $100. How about one house per family for $1000? And as with OLPC, the prototypes actually cost a lot more -- but we're getting there. [url]
- If you're looking for more architecture projects, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]
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Filed Under: homes, housing, real estate, shipping containers
Companies: ikea
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Bye bye, Mr. Shipping Container!
(Sorry, we self-built a house and after our experience I couldn't resist.)
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Run into an ordinance that states that something must be built out of "suitable material"? Now, what is a suitable material?
Is it, say, a carefully engineered steel structure built to withstand great pressures and stresses in a world-spanning variety of places? Well, its not in Jim-The-Inspecter's little handbook, so.. no.
This can be fought, but it can quickly run into an uphill battle. A relative spent 3 years 'living' in a trailer in his front yard, his secure, safe (and creatively constructed) home technically uninhabitable.
iirc the solution turned out to be waiting for the old county inspector to retire and getting a certification a week later.
As for being the savior of the housing industry.. no, no. The very idea that someone would not sink a few hundred thousand into a mcmansion in the suburbs terrifies the industry. They really want things to go back to the way they used to be. "Used To Be" in this case meaning "incredible untenable levels that defy rational thought"
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http://www.travelizmo.com/archives/001692.html
http://www.noholidaynolife.com/wp-conte nt/uploads/2010/07/motorhome.jpg
http://www.littlediggs.com/littlediggs/2009/07/two-story-convert ible-camper-diy-japanesestyle-mobile-home.html
http://www.motorhomeplanet.co.uk/archives/27
http:/ /abusforus.blogspot.com/ (It says for $500 you can transform a van into a motorhome)
http://steampunkworkshop.com/bus1.shtml
Basically those are containers on wheels.
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I would not mind one for a remote cabin by a secluded lake.
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I believe the guy on the steampunk article transforming an old bus into a motorhome spent around $6 thousand dollars to do it all, so on the cheap you could do it to 3 containers for around $20 thousand.
Source: http://steampunkworkshop.com/bus1.shtml
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And with up to 2 fts those containers could have some sort of extending internal parts that would connect with each other like the modern day motorhomes have, or like the space station.
I see those things I immediately picture space habitats.
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Now that can be fixed but it is not cheap at the moment.
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