So you are either interested in building a container home yourself, or you are just curious about what the Ritter-Lopatowski's are up to these days. Long story short, we have officially finished construction on our shipping container home. After first coming up with the idea eight years ago, we are very excited to share with the world the process that we've gone through to get where we are now. We are definitely not the first to do this. Hell, there are shows on HGTV and Hulu all about it, but even with all of the shows and information out there on container homes, we still had so many questions. This has been an enormous learning experience for us, and maybe we can help inspire others to use alternative building construction methods for their homes.

To answer some frequent questions upfront...

1. No, we did not build a "tiny house," if anything, during this COVID-19 pandemic, we've learned that we need our own spaces! We used seven used shipping containers sourced from thousands that are sitting unused in Tacoma, WA. 

2. No, we did not save a ton of money by using shipping containers instead of stick-frame construction. Perhaps if you live in a warmer and dryer climate, it'll save you money, but not here in the Pacific Northwest. Now that we've finished, we have some ideas about how others could cut some of the costs. 

3. Why shipping containers? Well, there are multiple answers to that question, but one reason is the simple motto, "Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle." 

​

It took us seven years of planning from initial conception to officially "breaking ground." Construction proceeded through multiple headaches and delays but officially began on July 17, 2020, and we were granted occupancy on August 24, 2021 (not too bad for doing a lot of the work ourselves!). We wrapped up our construction loan at the beginning of October 2021, which means construction took us 15 months. We still have some trim and landscaping, but the majority of the work is done, so cheers!

​

We hope you enjoy reading about our process and the steps we've taken thus far. Questions? Reach out to us using the form at the bottom of this page.