Shipping Container Home Reveal Before and After

Check out the BEFORE and AFTER of our shipping container home!  With hard DIY work, we turned a used shipping container into a tiny house.   The shipping container sits on 7 acres of land in Upstate New York next to our vegetable garden and green house.  With fresh paint, new flooring and colorful furniture we were able to make our dream vacation home on a small budget! 

Remember when we bought the raw shipping container?
Remember when we painted the interior of the shipping container?
Remember when we redid the flooring of the shipping container?

Well you guys……it’s done (for now!).  Here’s our Shipping Container Home Reveal!

A quick little note about the project if you’re a new reader.  We bought land in Upstate New York to build a eco friendly weekend home.  We’ve always been interested in recycling a shipping container to use for a Summer getaway, so that’s what we did.  The shipping container sits on 7 acres of land, next to our vegetable garden and greenhouse.   The goal of this project was to make a simple, economic getaway so we could run away from NYC on weekends and unplug.  The entire project took about a year and a half but it would have went quicker if we didn’t get pregnant and have a baby in the middle of it!  Also Winters are brutal in Upstate New York so we didn’t get up much during those months.   We have thoughts of expanding the shipping container into 2 or 3 stories and making one side of it all glass windows but we’re still unsure of our next step.  For now, it serves it’s purpose so enjoy the reveal!  Thanks to Hayneedle for working with me on this project!

We might have done things backwards – first we bought land, then we built a garden, and then a greenhouse.   For a getaway vacation place you might see we’re missing a big thing – a place to stay! But don’t worry, we had big dreams, we just needed some extra time to execute these plans!  Here’s the before:

I’ve loved the idea of making a eco friendly small home out of recycled materials – in our case, a shipping container.   Since this would just be a vacation home with us not spending much time there, we knew we didn’t need anything big or extravagant.  We wanted a small home that had the basics, made us comfortable and made us feel like we were back in our NYC loft even though we were on a grassy field where bobcats and deer ran by at night.

Once we got the container delivered, we cleaned it up, gave it a fresh coat of paint, redid the flooring and then moved on to the fun part – decorating inside!  We kept the container light and airy with white walls, white ceiling and light gray flooring, but decided to add our love of color to the furniture!  Sometimes it’s hard to explain a vision when you have one, but I knew that our love of mix-matched colorful furniture and kooky, fun decorations would look great together once it was all put together!

The shipping container is one big open space, with a wall separating the bathroom from living space.  Even though the container is only 320 square feet, you’d be surprised by how much you can fit into a small space, especially when you decide what are essentials and what you really don’t need.   To double up and stretch our space, we went with a New Spec Sofabed, which is a beautiful cherry red modern couch during the day and a big twin bed by night!  It’s such a statement piece in the room where everyone wants to know where we bought the couch from when visiting!

 To keep the modern aesthetic in the living room area we added a Modway Wooden Armchair in Gray which helps in adding a neutral to the colorful red couch.  I threw a Belham Living Allover Tufted Square Ottoman in teal in front of the armchair if you want to put your feet up after a long day of gardening.   A coffee table would take up too much space to walk around so we went with a cement looking Dimond Home Hive End Table instead.  To make this section comfy and feel like home we added in a colorful rainbow nuLOOM Mod Stripes Area Rug which I love so much I might have to buy from my NYC home!

One thing I do a lot of when visiting the land is gardening.  We have a big vegetable garden where we grow all our own food so I wanted the dining area to be inviting since we often cook our dinners straight from garden to table.   We got the LumiSource Oregon Dining Table which easily fits 4, but could fit 6 if we’re having friends to visit.    Paired with 4 multi color Flash Furniture Collins Dining Chairs I’m in love with our dining area!  I had a hard time finding a small kitchen island that fit our style but as soon as I saw that the Home Styles Design Your Own Kitchen Island came in white with a stainless steel top I knew it was perfect!  To end the dining area we are using Red Vanilla Pure Vanilla 16 pc. Rimmed Dinner Set and the cutest Cathys Concepts Jack-O-Lantern Stemless Wine Glasses to serve dinner with.

Besides the couch the other key furniture piece in the space is the neon green Phoenix Miami 3 Drawer Sideboard which again, I also want for our NYC apartment!  It is such a strong and modern sideboard that give us plenty of storage to hide anything we want to be put away. 

Finishing out the container we added a few accessories for functionality and style, such as the Adesso Louise Floor Lamp, the Authentic Models Solar System Mobile that hangs from the middle of the container, a Décor Wonderland Frameless Leona Wall Mirror that hangs from the bathroom to make the space seem larger, and a super cute Pumpkin Parade Coir Doormat that I almost feel bad for wiping my muddy boots on!

We use a portable toilet due to it’s small size and because it doesn’t require any plumbing.

It’s been great to escape from NYC on the weekends and get my gardening on!

Hope you enjoyed our shipping container home reveal! If you liked this check out of all our Upstate Adventures posts for more DIY work!