20ft Shipping Container Home Built for Under $15k

sometimes events can occur in our lives which act as catalyst for great change tragedy can transform us and that's exactly what happened with this next inspiring man whose devastating loss set him on an entirely new life path [Music] hey loans how's it going mate good nice to meet you great to meet you and it's wonderful to see your incredible home yeah first of all tell me how you came to be living in a shipping container house well I was working up in Alberta years ago and just decided the working life wasn't for me and one of the lifestyle change so actually researched one of your videos and found budget shipping container living and I'll give it a try so when you were working up in Alberta I'm guessing that was working in the oil industry up there I was I was working for a road design company designing roads up in northern Alberta what was it about that lifestyle that kind of grated on you well the hours were long working for someone else yes I was trading my time for good money but at the end of the day it wasn't really worth it took its toll on my body and my social life and yeah it was not ideal so what was the catalyst that really inspired you to make that life change two years ago my mom got really sick and I was away and I felt the pole to come back to Victoria but I didn't know quite how to do it I didn't know how to transition my career to Victoria from Alberta and so my mom was really sick and the idea was is that I would come back and spend some time with her but the universe kind of kicked me in the butt a little bit and made me do it a little sooner when my best friend Darren passed away at that point I came home and kind of was with friends and family and I was also preparing for my mom's death she was in the hospital and I thought that I just needed a project dive into with my time as well as doing all these things for the important people in my life and I started researching shipping container homes and tiny home living and educated myself basically on design from your channel and I'm so sorry to hear about your friend and your mother I think sometimes it's those life events that can be a catalyst and really show us how important and how precious life is and how important it is to be able to go on this journey that enables us to do things that are of true innate importance in our lives yeah yeah absolutely yeah after my mom passed away it was all or nothing when it comes to life and I wasn't gonna work for anyone anymore and I thought that you know if I just tried to make money at doing what I love to do that would leave the most meaningful life and at the end of my life I would have no regrets that way so I decided just to focus on doing what I'm good at doing what I love and this tiny home living has helped support me in that after my best friend passed away and my mom shortly after I really needed some space to myself and I found that moving into this tiny home doing this project gave my mind a task and it gave my heart some healing and I really found that this was the first step to wonderful change in my life and it's it's only gonna get better from here and the land that you have found feel contained a home is really beautiful as well you kind of missile dried into the forest there how did you come by this spot well this place is actually my grandfather's house and property as he was getting older I thought that he would need a little help maintaining this yard and and the family thought it was a good idea so everything just kind of worked out and I mean as far as the space goes for putting a tiny home you can't get any better than a courage backing on a forest backing on a lake in the background so yeah it was just perfect now this whole build you did this all yourself didn't you I did it all myself I had some friends that helped me with some trades and everything when things got tough but for the most part I tried to do all the work myself keep the cost down as much as possible I just wanted to become more connected with my home too so I really wanted to do as much as I could for me to work on this project as a DIY it was very challenging but very rewarding I really learnt a lot about myself and how I overcome problems in life you can either walk away from a problem or you can find a way to fix it and it allowed me to step over hurdles instead of walk away from them and I take the skills that I learned from this project and bridge them over to my life and learning and growing as a person so I really find that working on this project has really helped me in my life skills and my future moving forward and what size shipping container is this it looks like a 20-footer this is a 20-footer but it's bumped out about another 4 feet at the end therefore my bedroom right yeah pretty clear that how you've done the bump out there how does that work yeah so the bump out is just the two ends doors opened and I've slapped a roof on it and built a wall with the window and build a platform for a bed so it's very easily dismantle so essentially all I have to do is take the roof off tip the wall out and close the doors and this place is ready to be moved and maybe 24 hours fantastic well I'm super keen to check out your handiwork and see what you've done on the inside yes come on in thank you very much this place is fantastic yes thank you very much I really like the way that you've styled this home it's light with all other whites but you've really warmed it up with these beautiful timber features and that brunch is seriously cool yeah the beautiful beautiful ants was found in my backyard here along with many of these furnishings so yeah this is a piece of oak with the bark still on and I really wanted to give this place a modern feel yet nature vibes as well yeah and entering the home we're immediately here in your kitchen yes absolutely I wanted a nice big sink as eating is very important to me I just wanted this place to be really functional and lots of storage I have more kitchen storage than I need actually so it's it's really nice I'm able to not sacrifice when it comes to eating and then you've got the fridge and the gas burner over here as well all the practical elements taken care of absolutely I love cooking with gas so propane was a great option for me and I got a nice full-sized fridge here so again don't have to sacrifice on on any eating beautiful at work in here as well yes thank you very much these paintings are from local artists in town good friends of mine and they fit right in they certainly do and so many wonderful little elements of nature that you've brought into the home as well obviously lots of pot plants and crystals and this terrarium is something quite special did you do this yourself yes I did me and my partner were in the back forest and just gathering some things and thought we'd make a nice terrarium especially with your location here being nestled into the forest like this and then taking so many of those natural elements and incorporating them into your home it really just gives the whole space this wonderful natural feeling yeah it's a really nice blend of inside and outside and when you come here and stay and and live here it's very much relaxing very nourishing absolutely and is this your bathroom in here this is good-sized shower yes a nice full-size stand-up shower was really important to me as you know us being tall folks a good shower is really important and then what is this contraption here that is the one wheel that is my favorite toy it is an off-road skateboard lots of fun it sounds like a ridiculous amount of fun and there is a hula hoop there as well yeah so that is another way that I make money I create and sell LED flow art hula hoops very cool that sounds like a super interesting job that you've created for yourself yeah it's pretty fun and I make lots of good friends doing it I did and what's the other work that you're involved in I am an athletic development and career coach particularly in hockey players so I do skills training and career advice fantastic because you used to be a pretty big hockey player I know you actually traveled to New Zealand for a year to play for out sitting down there yeah yeah I was an Auckland playing for the Admirals down there and it was a lot of fun well God knows we need the help so thank you for that so you've got an off-road skateboard and a hula-hoop in there but I feel like that's replacing something that should probably be there instead yes it is in building this place i plumbed in everything needed to put a toilet there either composting or flushable I found that I didn't really need it I have a note house outback and it's a little more forest vibes with the outhouse so one day I will put it two out there now one of the notorious problems with shipping container homes is insulation and here in Victoria gets pretty cold here can you talk to me about how you've insulated the container and how you keep it warm in the winter yeah so that was one of the most important things that I designed first of all I wanted the insulation to be really good working with only 30 amps of service I wanted to be able to heat this place adequately without too much power drop so what I've done here is I have insulated about three inches of spray foam on the roof as well as three inches of styrofoam board on the roof so the roof is about an hour thirty-five value the walls are about two inches of space film and two inches of styrofoam so about around an hour 20 and then what do you use for heating I just have a small oil radiator heater for the winter time I find that in the spring and summer time my body heat my candles and the cooking is enough to sufficiently heat this place and then over here we have your bedroom and it's super cool the way that this branch kind of frames it and with the window there and to the forest it kind of looks like this wonderful connection that you have with the outdoors in this area yeah absolutely every morning I wake up and I can see anything from deer walking by - squirrels rabbits birds feeding of the bird feeder it's just wonderful and I really wanted a good nature feel and I felt like this Arbutus branch growing out of the wall across the bedroom was a good way to do that and you've got the climbing ivy on it as well which I especially like yeah absolutely it's quite cool the way that you've decorated your home with these logs as well yeah these logs are all local logs that I found on the beaches here in Victoria I just love wood art so I thought they would fit well so tell me about this part of the space this is my bedroom this is where are the doors open on the outside it gives us an extra four feet of space and this is where I decided to put the bed also with design in mind and max amount of stored as possible I designed a few cool features in this bed I've got three pullout drawers that fully pull out all the way they're about five feet long each so plenty of closed storage there all seasons long as well as the platform of the bed is actually designed with holes in it and a space for a heater inside one of the drawers so in the winter I turn the heater on and it actually heats up the mattress and it's very very nice as well as when I'm reading or watching TV I've got a little contraption where the bed props up on one side and I'm able to comfortably with with good posture read or watch TV fantastic you've got a decent size television here as well yep absolutely this TV swings over if I want to watch TV in bed and swings back and I'm not using it brilliant and then you've got more lovely art in here as well yeah absolutely that's another way that I make money I find that multiple sources of income is kind of the best so yes these are local artists and I sell prints of them on my Instagram I think that's just such a great way of doing it that first you've managed to reduce all of your expenses and overheads and then you've created these little multiple income streams that just trickle in enough money to keep you going and to keep you working and things that you can be passionate about yeah this lifestyle change was all about doing what I love to do and nothing else fantastic and beautiful at work thank you very much so you've been living in the home now for how long I've been living in the home for about eight months now and is tiny house life living up to its expectation for you Oh tiny home living let me tell you is one of the best transitions I've ever made in my life tiny home living has really taught me a lot about myself I'm really diving into what's important in my own heart in my mind the evolution of myself has really come a long way recently in the last two years and it's really given me the seclusion and the space that I need to dive into figuring out what I want to do in life how I want to live how I want to treat people moving forward tiny home living has also allowed me to do really what I want to do in life to make money how I want to make money I don't want to work a nine-to-five job or like I was in Alberta a 12-hour day job to get ahead really I'm just doing less and it's really opened my heart and made my life feel very full this was a DIY project and obviously you started this wanting to be very budget-conscious so what was the final cost of this home the final cost of this home was somewhere between thirteen and fourteen thousand dollars so it was really light on the wallet which was great this is an astounding result for that cost yeah thank you very much you have done exceptionally well thank you and so what is the future hold for you now I think my next project is going to be a van conversion so I think the van tiny-home combination is just gonna be the most beautiful life experience imaginable I totally agree that's living the dream right there yeah absolutely well Lance you have done such a brilliant job in this home I love your story and all of the heart that's gone into building this space and it really is just such a wonderful home so thank you for sharing it with me thank you very much Lance really has created himself a spectacular home here and while the events that led him to this point may have been really difficult and challenging he's overcome those challenges and managed to come out the other side with a brand new take on life and a wonderful adventure ahead of him [Music] you

Channel: Living Big In A Tiny House

Views: 1,736,809

Rating: 4.9099445 out of 5

Keywords: living big in a tiny house, tiny house, tiny home, shipping container, shipping container house, container house, 20ft shipping container home, container living, diy shipping container home, budget container home, shipping container conversion, shipping container house canada, tiny house living, tiny house tour, shipping container tour, tiny house 2019

Id: Sv4hk8cPasg

Length: 16min 4sec (964 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 26 2019