St. Catherine Container Home

This container home is definitely not like many of the ones you have seen before, for more reasons than you think. Set in St. Catherines, Ontario, this home was built by a patient owner who worked for a number of years to get the approvals, engineering, and financing lined up for the project.

Let’s start with the most obvious: this container home is tall and narrow! The city lot is 283 feet deep but only 17 feet wide, ruling out most traditional types of construction in the first five minutes.

But the owner thought containers with their eight-foot width and easy stackability would be ideal. As time would tell, he was right.

The home is actually built with five containers in all: one 40 foot model on the ground floor, and two 20 footers on each of the upper floors. We, unfortunately, don’t have any construction pictures at this time, but it seems clear that the 20-foot containers on each level were separated a bit from each other to create a gap in the middle of the house that was later filled in, near the vertical seam of windows on the side of the house.

Another unique feature of the home is its foundation. In a move we’ve seen a few times before, ground-screws were augered into the ground and are used to support the containers. These types of foundations require no excavation work!

And how about the 2nd-floor balcony that also serves as a covered porch for the first floor? The angular reinforcements tie the structural load back into the foundation supporting the home, so no additional footings were required.

On the interior, the home makes the most of its narrow profile. Staircases, unfortunately, take up a good chunk of the interior space, but these are stylish at least.

As you progress up the floors, the space becomes more and more interesting. The ground floor is the smallest, just holding the entrance, a bathroom, utility area, and a bedroom/office area in the back. The second floor has the kitchen, dining, and living areas. The third floor has a laundry area, a bathroom, and two bedrooms.

High ceilings are used throughout along with ample windows and sliding glass doors to keep you from feeling too ‘boxed in’, pun intended! The amazing interior designs of this house create a lovely house that is very livable despite its narrow dimensions.