It's a carport!

Actually, it's a purlin horse shader, but who's counting?

Here you can see our driveway and small garden, which has now been planted. Pictures of that area (looking somewhat pathetic due to the season TOMORROW!)

It's on the north end of the house, and has only two walls- west, and a roof. This blocks the worst of the prevailing wind, and the gap between the house and the wall of the garage will be blocked off soon. The very leftmost part of the inside of the carport is a big door, so we have easy access out that direction.

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The intent of the blog was not only to write about the construction of a container home, but the realities of living in such a small space, and I really haven't done that. The truth is, our adjustment period was very short, and there's not much different living here. We do have a small list of things we miss:

• A sofa. We currently use two Poang chairs from IKEA, and they somewhat lack the hominess of a nice sofa to snuggle on. I am absentmindedly researching very small loveseats. 
• An oven. We never really used one extensively in our apartment, but there are a few things we would like to cook again. I'm currently pining after a large Kitchenaid toaster oven that supposedly has the ability to bake small breads, and broil meat more quickly than our little toaster oven.
• More clothes storage. We have seriously miscalculated in this respect. This is going to be rectified by building in a wardrobe of sorts where our dresser currently sits. It will consist of shelves bolted to the studs in that wall, with an end-cap on the hallway side, and some doors. This should take care of the clothes problem, in conjunction with another reduction of goods. 
• A larger volume of air to buffer our heating and cooling efforts. 

We had to 'carpet' the big metal floor piece in the kitchen for the winter.  I took a large indoor/outdoor rug and cut it to fit the area, as not only were we losing heat through it, it was quite shockingly cold to step on when feeding the cats first thing in the morning. I now occasionally have to vacuum the kitchen, which is still enough of a novelty to not be annoying.

The seating arrangement has changed, and Alan and I now sit together on the east wall, with a small table in between us. The corner that was mine is now where the heater goes, and a small indoor cat tree. We found that we liked this way quite a bit better for watching movies or "tv"(Hulu Plus) together, and never bothered to put things back.


Tomorrow is chore day, and I will post some interior and exterior pictures when everything is clean.

Also, it was some other stuff day

 After we unmasked all of the painting, everyone was very energized, so...we put up the awning metal.

 We also put on the solar screen! It looks so much different now, it's actually a little startling. We are utterly in love with it!

 Yesterday, we built our bed. Here's Alan standing in the frame.

  The frame being built. It's redwood 2x6's dovetailed together, then screwed to a 1/4" wall angle which is bolted to the floor. The bottom of the frame is 22" high.

The 4x4 is fixed, but the 2x4's can be removed.

The bed platform can be lifted with the blue strap you can see at the top. We have six 18 gallon storage tubs, and six 9 gallon tubs tucked underneath.

This isn't quite finished, but here's the bed and about 1/3 of the bedroom storage (there's an additional cabinet that runs across the back wall, and a dresser). We decided to camp out tonight (no toilet or shower, it's totally camping!) on the bed and are very excited for it.