It took almost two years for real estate broker and Crossroads volunteer Jeff White to build an affordable home out of recycled shipping containers. A lot of opposition came from the architects he approached to help him with the plans, though there were also quite a few bureaucratic obstacles to overcome to get the necessary permits. But now the Sarah container home is finally built and ready for occupancy. Jeff was inspired to build the home after seeing the makeshift dwelling of a homeless San Francisco artist named Sarah, and he named his creation after her.
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Boat builder Steve White from Belfast, Irland has recently constructed a houseboat made from shipping containers. He intends to live in it and has parked it in the Brooklin marina. White was helped in bringing his project into existence by SnapSpace Solutions, which is a Brewer company specializing in repurposing containers for living and office space, as well as Ellsworth container homeowners Jennifer Sansosti and Trevor Seip, and boat builder Andrew Baldwin.

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Some years ago the architecture firm LOT EK completed an innovative expansion on the NYC residence of the Guzman family. The resulting 1500 square foot penthouse is made up of a transformed mechanical room and a 20-foot shipping container. The bedroom is located inside the container part of the structure, while the designers also added a patio, and now the whole penthouse has a spectacular view of the Empire State Building.

The transformed mechanical room serves as the main living area of the home, while the master bedroom was moved to the upstairs shipping container part of the penthouse. The bay window at the main level, which is made from the back part of the shipping container, was wedged into the south wall of the building. The shipping container bedroom was then placed atop this structure.

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