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Hello!

I have a confession to make. As of this post we have been moved into our house for longer than we were in the camper!! 10 months!

So (belated drumroll....) we are completely transitioned FROM camper TO container home!!

BUT.....

I'm still gonna post updates as though we are still working on it!

And here is my reasoning-

We have moved way faster than I have had time to update. Finding the time has been the main challenge to keeping yall up to date. With 4 kiddos, (two teenagers and two toddlers!), my hubby and church activities, plus I have been doing a lot more of the finish work, caulking and painting.

Also I was way behind to begin with because I didn't know how easy it would be to post on the blog. (I had a mental block on it so i just didn't start blogging until after we started.)😶

So, without further ado, I will share the info on how we did the framework and the roof.


We had decided we wanted the inside to have the container feel and the outside to look like a normal house. If we would have framed, insulated and sheetrocked the interior we would have lost floor space. 


An insulation contractor suggested a pole-barn style frame around the outside of the containers to hang the siding on and so that we could insulate between the siding and the containers. 


 I told yall we dug a footer all the way around for the cinder block walls. This was to support the frame. 



The siding is 8 inches away from the container walls in the front of the house and 10 inches in the back.



The framework is built on a 2x6 treated top plate that is attached to the cinder block wall around the home.


The 4x4 posts are attached to the top plate with 4 inch custom aluminum angles. We used hydraulic concrete to cement in 24 inch lengths of all-thread, which runs through one aluminum angle, the top plate and the cinder block, tying the 4x4 post to the stem wall.


Our contractor, Pedro, told my husband, ""Mister John, these standard brackets are too flimsy. If we cut aluminum it will be stronger, they make airplanes out of this."


He had 4x4 square tubing left over from a school playground project.


We did a traditional metal roof, but attaching it to the container is unique to our situation.

The cheapest and easiest way to frame the roof was with metal trusses welded to the container tops on ends, and to vertical posts that were welded to the bottom beam of the container (3 spaced 10 feet apart).



The ends are about 1 inch higher than the middle because the ends are the load points when the stack, so the middle posts are an inch above the top edge of the container to accommodate.


My husband's engineer was concerned about the strength of the container roof, and so he added the posts to transfer the load to the bottom beam of the container which is load rated.



Several weeks ago he was cutting the top out of a really big tree and it landed on the roof of a container we are using for storage and made a big noise but no damage. So he isn't really concerned anymore. 😊



Our home has so many different aspects of it that are built well beyond certifiable codes. We could have saved quite a bit of money if we would have simply not over-built on a lot of it. But, live and learn. This house isn't going anywhere.



Let me know if you have any questions or comments! I would love hearing from you!

Until next time!

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