Nederland Container Home

About 10 miles west of Boulder, Colorado sits the tiny town of Nederland, and one of the more unique container homes you’re likely to see. This shipping container house takes several novel approaches in its design, resulting in a home that has gained international attention.

The home was built by Andrew McMullin, a building contractor in Boulder with an interesting backstory. This rock climber, adventure bicyclist, and creative writing degree-holder had unconventional choices as a bit of a lifestyle. So, when he spotted a train full of shipping containers on a road trip back home to California, he decided he wanted to use them to build his home. And he had the perfect place to do it: on a rock outcropping just outside of Nederland, 9000 feet up in the Rocky Mountains.

The design utilized two 40 foot shipping containers that collectively form 640 square feet of the home’s roughly 1500 square feet of total floor area. The balance comes from the area between the two containers, plus the loft on top.

This is where things get interesting. Unlike most multi-container builds that use a “space-between” design concept, this home’s two containers aren’t parallel. Rather, they are angled to each other, seemingly funneling your attention and view to the mountain ridges to the south.

More specifically, the two containers are separated by 12 feet at the front of the home and 20 feet at the rear. This middle wedge-shaped space is an open area holding the entry, dining, and living area. Directly above this is a traditionally constructed loft with a half bathroom, bedroom, and deck. The shipping containers themselves hold two other bedrooms, a full bathroom, as well as a laundry room, an office, and a kitchen.

The construction of the home was particularly challenging, taking 18 months to finish. Essentially built on a large rock, the foundation system uses concrete footers, ‘fin’ walls, and 95 steel posts anchored into the granite below. Concrete was also used for the large open space’s floor, where a six-inch-thick slab was poured, though presumably not on grade.

As the pictures indicate, insulation was placed on the outside of the shipping containers, then covered with Hardie plank siding. This cement board is resilient against not only the tough weather conditions of the Rocky Mountains but also the threat of wildfires.

Due to the exterior insulation, most of the interior walls were intentionally left to show the exposed container metal. It’s evident in both the central open space as well as the bedrooms and kitchen. One unique interior feature is the office area door, which was made from a cutout piece of container corrugated metal along with a rail and two bearings.

Other elements we appreciate are the modern cabinets and countertops in the kitchen, as well as that shiny concrete floor in the open area. And how could we forget the dual glass-paned garage doors that offer incredible views of the mountains beyond. In the summer, they can be opened for passive cooling, and in the winter they heat the massive concrete floor for passive heating. 

The upstairs loft is quite special as well, with a bed that can actually be rolled right through the sliding glass door to the patio outside on those temperate, stary nights. Given that the home is off-grid, giving the option of camping under the stars feels like a straightforward choice.

But don’t think a camping mentality means you’ll be suffering from a lack of luxuries. For instance, the concrete floors on the ground level are heated by warm water, and solar panels provide plenty of electricity for all the home’s electrical needs. The heat for those cold Colorado winters is provided by a wood stove, so no worries about grid availability there either.

This Colorado container home encapsulates much of what we love to see in our favorite shipping container houses, like bold design, eco-friendliness, and efficient living. Andrew’s job as a contractor enabled him to not only reuse the shipping containers, but also tons of other excess building materials.

He was able to build a house on a lot where traditional construction would have likely been somewhere between prohibitively expensive and impossible. And thanks to the designers’ creative use of light, space, and views, Andrew built a modestly-sized home that feels luxurious and expansive.