Container House

In the ever-changing dialog of responsible building methods, the Container Home - a house built using steel shipping containers (the kind you see on the back of big-rig trucks or stacked on shipping barges) - falls somewhere in the middle of sustainability spectrum. On one hand, steel is not a renewable resource and the containers are usually doused in a fair amount of chemical insecticides, on the other, they are easy to ship, ultra-strong and can be recycled/ reused products. See: SFGate Article.

Now, tucked away in the beach-front tropical jungle of Merizo Guam, yes it's possible, we have our very own Container Home. It's propped up on cinder blocks, got metal walls, and an air conditioner on each side - I guess like a candle burning at both ends. I've lived in small basement apartments the last 3 years and forced Sloan to join me for the last one so, all-considered, this is a pretty big step up.

We spent the afternoon mopping the linoleum floors, scrubbing the bathroom and wiping out the huge full-size fridge, a monolith in the small apartment. The realtor mentioned this as a selling point. Merizo is about as isolated as you can get on Guam (only 30 miles long and 5-10 miles wide), a good 40 minutes from the nearest stocked grocery store. He recommended filling the thing with frozen meats, you know, just in case the power goes out and the roads flood. Word.