Tiny Slice of Heaven

Denver is fast becoming a tourist destination in its own right, over and above its proximity to the Rocky Mountains to the west. And rather than staying in a cookie-cutter hotel, many visitors are opting for unique short-term rentals. This shipping container home in the Berkeley neighborhood of Northwest Denver is one fun option to consider.

The location is perfect. To the north, you are within walking distance of a city park with a lake, jogging trail, tennis courts, and baseball field. Slightly farther to the south is a shopping center with restaurants and a grocery store. If the weather was nice, you could literally walk to everything you needed in the neighborhood. And for out-of-town visitors, it’s only a 10-minute drive to Amtrak’s Union Station and 25 minutes to the airport.

Speaking of the owners, Sarsha and Randal have the adventurous personalities to match their cool container house. And when they decided to build a guest house behind their main home, they turned to shipping containers as a way to get a self-contained building that was strong and modern.

This home was built off-site by a professional from a single 40-foot high cube shipping container. But in a less-commonly seen move, the container was actually cut down in length to only 33 feet in order to use slightly less room on the lot.

With one bedroom and one bathroom, the home is considered a studio. And despite only 264 square feet of floor area, it feels spacious and livable for two or three people. The home uses numerous horizontal windows to draw your eye sideways and make rooms appear longer than they are.

Additionally, the home is entered into via large french doors containers huge panes of glass. Light enters the home from all directions and despite the suburban location, the home feels quite tranquil.

A courtyard is formed between the container house and the adjacent garage, with wooden fences across the front and back. This encloses the outdoor space for a bit of privacy, meaning opening the french doors on nice days and expanding the home’s living area onto the deck is certainly possible.

Inside, the home has a queen size bed along with an L-couch that converts to a queen bed as well. So, two couples or a couple and two children could sleep here without issue.

The bathroom takes up the full width of the container and doesn’t feel cramped or dim. Hexagonal tiles in the shower give a fun texture to the room, and there’s a fun, hidden ‘feature’ as well: the window at the back of the shower looks out just past the refrigerator into the kitchen and living area beyond.

For the galley kitchen, you’ll find adequate space for meal preparation and dining. There’s a medium-sized refrigerator, microwave, and induction cooker. There’s also a custom butcher block counter that doubles as the eating area with two stools underneath.

The owners cleverly mounted a 32 inch TV on a flexible mount in the passageway between the bedroom and kitchen/living room so that the TV can be rotated and viewed from either location. They also used some other space-saving features, like a custom-made pegboard shelf.

Given Denver’s large seasonal temperature swings, the home is insulated and has a combined heater and air conditioning unit. Visitors should be comfortable at any time of year, both climate-wise and of course aesthetically speaking. That’s because this tiny container home is so well designed, with small touches that have made it an enjoyable retreat for hundreds of visitors.

If you just read the specifications of the home without seeing it, you might think it’s tiny, cramped, and uncomfortable. But seeing the pictures and a more in-depth description tells a different story. It’s certainly a tiny home, but one that feels bigger and better. It is the tiny design details and the large protected courtyard that work together to make this tiny container house so fun and enjoyable.