Dove Inn owners build shipping container house featured in Dwell magazine
By Dove Inn on December 22, 2018 in Media Coverage
For our owners Regan and Libby Foster, The Dove Inn’s remodel at the beginning of 2018 wasn’t the first big construction project they took on. Before The Dove Inn came into their lives, they built their own home in Denver. But as they are won’t to do, they didn’t settle for your typical wood framing. They built their home from nine shipping containers that had sailed the seven seas on huge ocean-going vessels. In this article from Dwell magazine, writer Ray Mark Rinaldi speaks to the Fosters about what made them decide to using shipping containers, the experience of building with steel, and how they used it to create a one-of-a-kind home for their family.
by Ray Mark Rinaldi
Published in Dwell Magazine. Read the full article here!
Making a house out of shipping containers sounds easy enough: Just snap up a few neglected boxes from a local junk dealer, rack ’em and stack ’em, and create a bit of old-school prefab magic.
In 2014, while recovering from a work-related injury, Denver-area firefighter Regan Foster started exploring the idea of shipping containers for a new house he was planning to build. Two years later, he and his wife, Libby, moved into a home made mostly of the giant metal bins, having done much of the work themselves. They share the residence with their year-old daughter, Evie, and Libby’s mother.
But recycling the detritus of global shipping has its complications. Like how to turn corrugated steel boxes that measure an awkward eight feet wide and 40 feet long into something cozy enough to call home. Or how to keep their metal floors from vibrating when you walk on them, or prevent the chemicals they are treated with from being released into the air. Or, perhaps most important, how to assemble it all so it doesn’t look like you live in the storage yard …
Read the rest of the article here!
