Hi, I'm Ben and this is the house I built out of shipping containers. Now I've been interested in shipping container architecture for quite some time, but I had a really hard time finding good information about how to get building permits or how much would it cost? Well, we did the research. We documented everything that we did, and now we're so excited to share with you what we learned. So check it out.
Today, we're going to build out the bedrooms. This video is sponsored by Omaze click on the link in the description, and you'll have a chance to win your very own tiny home. In the previous episode, we showed how we did that transition from the bathroom flooring into the bedroom. There's two bedrooms in this house and each one of them is placed at the end of one of the containers. There's a queen sized mattress in the main unit and a full sized in the guest unit.
Now, after doing that tricky detail where I blended the hexagonal tile into the flooring in the main unit, installing just the basic flooring in the guest unit was a snap. We're using a wide plank engineered flooring that clicks and locks together and has a whitewashed French Oak look. In the main container I installed the boards running the long way, but in this little short guest unit, I'm running them perpendicular to the length of the container. The floorboards come precut, and they do a really good job of staggering the joints. But since the space is so short, I had to make a lot of cross cuts. So I just started installing the pieces and using my nail gun to nail them down. And my sister, Jesse cut the pieces to length. I really liked the idea of a cozy bedroom nook, but I also want plenty of space where the Airbnb guests can store their luggage.
So that's why I decided to do this raised deck just about 12 inches off the floor. I screwed two-by-sixes to the walls. Now, remember I have plywood in all these walls, so I have plenty of strength for the structural connection, but even so I still made sure that I screwed through the plywood and into the studs themselves. I then use joist hangers to nail in additional two-by-sixes to create support for the top deck, which will be made out of plywood. I then measured the size of the deck and cut a piece of three quarter inch pure bond, Oak veneer plywood to fit.
Now I want to take down the color of the oak a little bit. So I use a very thin wood stain in antique white. For the front edges of the bed decks. I'm going to use a piece of three quarter inch solid Oak. And I also hit this with the varathane antique white. Now the stain gives us the right look, but to protect the wood, I'm going to coat them with two coats of varathane polyurethane. While the polyurethane is curing, I cut some five and a half inch wide trim boards to cover the front faces of the two by sixes and use my nail gun with finished nails to Fasten these in place.
I check the fit of the plywood and it looked pretty good, but I did need to cut a notch out of the back of it so that you could access one of the electrical outlets. I didn't place the solid Oak front edge and drove in some finished screws to fasten it. I covered the heads of the screws, some wood putty. And I kind of liked the idea of taking this small space and making it even cozier. And I liked the idea of sort of a modern canopy bed, so I installed a curtain rod and installed these linen curtains from Magic Linens on it. This is the bedroom where we did the dropdown ceiling to accommodate the flush trimmed air handler. And the whole thing came out really cozy, and there's still plenty of room to store suitcases down below. This guest unit is just under 140 square feet of interior space and a lot of that goes towards the bathroom. That's why we put these glass doors parallel to each other so that they can bring in lots of light. And if you open them both up, you get plenty of cross ventilation.
Now, before we get to the second bedroom, let's hear a word from our sponsor for this video, Omaze. Omaze is giving people a chance to win and customize their very own tiny home. That's right. You can win your very own tiny home built by modern, tiny living with up to a hundred thousand dollars of value. And the taxes are covered too. You can fully customize this tiny home of your dreams, whether you want to add solar panels, a party deck on the roof or even a home office. So what would you do if you won the prize? What customizations would you include? I'm starting to think that a roof deck from my tiny container house might be a good idea. Now, one of the things that I like about Omaze is that they work with different charities. And for this campaign, they're working with Path and Path is on a mission to end homelessness and now more than ever, their work is saving lives.
So Path will remain on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis to help the most vulnerable. So to potentially win your own tiny home of your dreams and support path, which is a great cause, go to amaze.com/the modern home project. That's amazing.com/the modern home project, or just click on the link in the description box below.
And now for the other bedroom. Now, if you remember in the last episode, we had some issues getting to flooring to line up with the wall. So I just covered that with a two by six and then covered the two by six with a white trim board. Now this isn't just a hide my mistakes, although it's partly because of that, it's also to create a shelf for charging your phone. The shelf extends all the way under the platform for this bedroom, which we made mostly the same way. And this Oak shelf will be right under where the outlets are. The one difference would just be that we used a nail gun to nail the plywood and Oak to the two by sixes, instead of screwing them. This is just a little bit easier to conceal with wood putty.
The bed is really the only piece of furniture that fits in this room. So I imagine will be used for lounging, watching Netflix and stuff like that. So I wanted to make sure that it had access to a lot of different plugs and outlets for charging phones and laptops. So I drilled a hole at the foot of the bed and installed a grommet so that you could run a nice cloth colored power cord through the grommet, and then plug it into the wall. I also added a shelf underneath the window where you could set books, a glass of water, or once again, your phone for charging.
Now I normally get a lot of people freaking out about how we didn't drill holes into plywood deck to ventilate the mattress well. Well with these Tuft and needle mattresses that isn't necessary, just as long as the surface that it's resting on isn't retaining moisture, which this plywood, which can drive from the bottom. Isn't also how cool are those little retro looking Conway, electric extension cords for the first bedroom we are going for a cozy reading nook. And for this one, we want it to be a light, airy destination at the end of this long container. The linen duvet cover and curtains from magic linens really helped make this possible. All right, let's head over to the studio and talk about what's next for this series.
Hi Ben here. So the series is winding down, pretty much showed all of the building and all we have left is a few more episodes. Now we're going to do one where we show a complete tour throughout the home. Maybe do a little bit of like a band a life of as if I was living there full time. In reality, we've been having this on Airbnb for quite some time, and we've been getting some really good data about how much revenue it's generating. And we'll say that information and package that all up into little, probably be the final episode for this series, which we'll talk about the budget, all the construction costs, things like that, but also show return on investment through Airbnb and potential sales offers, if we do decide to list it.
So still probably two to three more on this container house, although that could change, if we decide to add like a swimming pool or things like that, but that by no means, means that we're done with this channel. Actually I'm very excited to announce that I secured a another piece of land, not too far from this container home where I'll be building another house from scratch. Now this time, it won't be a container house. And I'm really excited about it because we've had a lot of questions and comments saying, Oh, why'd you do this? Why'd you do this well now we'll get to show a whole different way to build a modern home. And probably in frankly, a much more cost efficient way since we won't be dealing with the hassle of containers, we're gonna use much more conventional systems for construction. So thanks again for subscribing and for watching all of these videos, I really appreciate it. The series has done way better than what I expected. The few numbers are just extraordinary, considering that we launched this channel from scratch. Although we got a little bit of help from the homemade modern audience, so shout out to you guys, but thanks for watching.
And Oh, if you're interested in getting the architectural plans for this container house project, there's a link to them in the description box below. Now we've sold a ton of these. We sell them for a hundred dollars, which is way less than a typical house plan. That being said, do not buy this, if you think this is going to be this solution for getting you an affordable living situation. Container houses are great. They can be built cost effectively, but going through financing and all that stuff is what it, even if it is affordable, not that accessible, unless you have a disproportionately large amount of money for the down payment or the whole does a contingency during the construction process.
So, we'll be working towards more projects that are more aimed at more affordable type of housing in the future. That's what my aspirations really are, but for now enjoy the rest of the container house series. Keep your eyes open on my Instagram, or I'll probably be teasing the next property and what we're working on there. So thanks again. Goodbye.
Oh yeah. And one more time. Don't forget to go to omaze.com/the modern home project for a chance to win your own tiny home.