Off-Grid Living in a 5x 20ft Shipping Container Home

With all of the craziness in the world today, more people than ever are dreaming of escaping the cities and going back to nature. And today here in the Coromandel, we're about to meet one woman who has done exactly that by building a spectacular off-the-grid shipping container home. Hi Rosie, how are you? Hi Peter Bryce, nice to meet you. It's lovely to meet you and wow, this place really is something else isn't it? Yeah, she's a beauty. How did you come to be I sold my house in Auckland and I was looking for some land or something to move out of Auckland and I just saw it on Trade Me and I took the day off work and came down that day so that I could find it. And as soon as I got out of the car, I was like yeah, I need to live here. I was able to buy the house because when I met my husband, I sold my Auckland property and moved in with him. And so basically I live in Auckland in his house and it freed up my finances so that I could actually do this. And this estate is a little bit different isn't it? Can you tell me a bit about the land we're on right now? So Mahakara Forest Estate is a reserve. It's a privately owned reserve. We've been given status for a sanctuary and basically it's 25 lots over 1100 acres. Wow. And at 23 acres, mine's the smallest of all the lots of beautiful, beautiful bush and it's 95% kiwitu covenanted so it's all about guardianship and looking after the native creatures and yeah, it's different. It's great. Beautiful. And then to take full advantage of your 23 acres, you have built this beautiful shipping container home. I have, yep. And this home is made up of four 20-foot shipping containers isn't it? Yes, that's right. So four 20-foots are the living space, so 60 square meters and then there's a utility container as well which is a 20-footer which is our mudroom that we walk through and it's also got a sectioned off area at the back which is where we keep our batteries and the inverter and all of that stuff for the solar. And why did you choose to build your home out of shipping containers? I really like the industrial look and I'd heard really good things about how long they last and how strong they were and I thought sometimes I changed my mind so if I wanted to put another level on the top or come out the sides I could and it would be a little bit easier to expand so I thought this is my starting point anyway. And you're totally off the grid in this home aren't you? Yes we are, we've got 12 solar panels and a four kilowatt system inverter, two 25,000 litre tanks and a worm composting septic system so we've kind of ticked all the boxes, yep totally off grid. Being off grid to me, well it was a dream but it's also there's that feeling of it's very empowering and it's a safe feeling knowing that I've always got water with no water rates and I've got power with no power bills and things like that and you know if anything happens in the world I'm okay. And then I can see you've created this lovely outdoor entertaining space here? Yes before the house was here when we just had the caravan this was our main kind of gathering area and we used to cook on the fire and things like that and now it's for marshmallows but it's lovely here we spend a lot of time out here so this has the afternoon and evening sun and the other side of the house has the morning sun so between the two sides there's always a sunny spot or a shady spot if it's too hot. The perfect balance? It's perfect yeah. And I can see you're doing lots of planting here as well? Yes it's getting there now that the house is here just trying to plant as much as we can that wants to live here that isn't going to get all eaten by the possums and basically things that are edible or things that are medicinal. And you've given your home a very special name I see? Yes we have we've named her Ahureiwa which means sacred space because it honors the fact that it's a really old forest and the local iwi and acknowledge the land here. Beautiful. And my daughter painted it who's an artist so she's done some of the artwork inside the house as well which we can see. Oh how lovely that she could contribute to the home. Yeah yeah it's kind of it's it's her space as well. Yeah very special. Well this home just looks so cool and I cannot wait to see the inside can we check it out? Come have a look. Thank you very much. Having a mudroom like this is such a good idea isn't it? Because especially when you live in the forest having that nice separation between indoors and outdoors and the transition between them is really important. Oh 100% it gives us somewhere to kick off our muddy gumboats put all our sort of our trapping gear down and then just kind of go into the house and it's quite nice yeah. Absolutely and also being able to keep the utilities separate from the main house is a great idea as well. Oh completely and keeping that hum of the inverter as far away from the bedroom as possible. You do get used to it but it's nice to sort of not have it in a cupboard in the home yeah. And so in there is where you've got all of your batteries stored as well. That's right so that's where the inverter and the solar batteries are and the power board and because the inverter generates heat it's also where we put things like our kindling and our paper for the for lighting the fire to keep it dry and we also put our washing in there and dry our washing in there in winter. What a good idea and then the main house is through there. Yeah come and have a look. Let's have a look. Oh my gosh that view is just ridiculous panoramic right to the horizon and I really love the way that the house almost completely wraps around the deck and then just takes full advantage of that spectacular vista. Yep definitely it's the sort of house is placed so that from every single window we can see the view. Fantastic and then this kitchen is just huge. Yeah it's pretty big isn't it? Bigger than I thought it would be. I love cooking obviously and it's the best kitchen I've ever had. Yeah. Yeah it's really practical as well so the cabinetry is they're tool trolleys from Bunnings. I was gonna ask about that too because it's really unusual it gives it almost a commercial kitchen look. It makes it look sort of very high spec but these are actually tool trolleys. They're tool trolleys from Bunnings which is I just took the tops off put the bench on every one of them's lockable this one's on wheels still the other ones obviously have been mounted so I can move this out the way if I want if we're having parties which we do sometimes so yeah it's really awesome. Wow and did that work out cheaper than built-in cabinetry? A lot cheaper I would say yeah so they were on sale at Bunnings which is why I bought them all and I think we got all of the cabinetry for under three thousand dollars. Oh wow. Yeah yeah pretty impressed. Yeah I really like what you've done here with the colours as well because you've got these orange walls that really lift the space but then you've got all of this beautiful natural exposed plywood as well. Yeah it's batchy and that was this point this is where we relax so it was really nice to have that and I love colour anyway I've never been afraid of colour and oranges it just pops and when the sunrise comes in in the morning and it hits the orange the whole room glows. Gorgeous. Hard not to feel happy in an orange room. Totally I agree 100%. And then you've got the wood fire there as well. Yep so the wood fire is wonderful because it's the that suited the space that had the oven underneath it so we can cook underneath if we ever run out of gas we can cook on the fire as well because it's you know we're in the middle of the mountains so it's can't just pop to the shop to get some more gas and so it's kind of that practical aspect to it as well but it heats the whole house up so quick that sometimes I have to open the door after I've lit the fire it's a bit warm. Yeah because of course being a shipping container as well you would have insulated this really well. Yep so it's eco insulation it's double glazed windows I've never had a house that was insulated before it's lovely I've always had the houses that are really cold in winter and really hot in summer so the difference between the living space and the mudroom which isn't insulated is huge and temperature wise yeah and a noise from the rain and things like that as well. And then over here this isn't a bookshelf this is your own personal library. Yeah it is I've always wanted a floor-to-ceiling library there's probably two decades of op shopping and book sales gone into the library and I'm yeah I'm really really happy with it. Wow and look at how organized you are as well. Yeah it's one of the few areas of my life I'm actually organized in is my library calling it the Rosie classification system because it makes sense to me so I know where to find all my all my study books and just a whole array of non-fiction and good sci-fi as well. I am very impressed and then you've got this lovely chair here as well as the perfect little reading nook. It is this is just curling up on the chair in winter with the fire on and a glass of wine on one of the library shelves it's a really hard life. Yeah it must be indeed and then again around here I just love how you've got the floor-to-ceiling window to just fully capitalize on that view. Yeah a hundred percent it's really important I thought that from any angle we can see that view yeah definitely. That is a serious telescope you've got there too. It's pretty lovely hey I got that for my birthday last year and dragging it out on the deck when it's a still night so as you know Coromandel's dark sky it's stunning absolutely stunning. Yeah your night sky views must be unbelievable here. They are. And then what do we have over the other side of the home? So the other side is another 20-foot container we've got the bathroom at one end and the bedroom at the other. Right beautiful barn sliding door is the entrance way there too. Yeah that was one of the things I splashed out on I just really love how striking it is when you first come in. Yeah absolutely and can we have a peek at the bathroom? Sure bathroom's just this way. Oh lovely those floor-to-ceiling tiles in here are beautiful. Yeah they're pretty stunning hey it's a bathroom jib so it's actually not tiles but it looks like really lovely concrete tiles. Well it definitely fooled me that's a great look. Yeah definitely. Nice looking vanity. Oh yes one of my many op shop finds that I've been hoarding over the years. Very nice and then the toilet as well so obviously here it just looks like a regular flushing toilet but it is anything but. Yeah that's right so it flushes like a normal regular toilet except that it goes down there's a black water and a grey water tanks so the black water tank for the toilet goes to the worm composting system and the grey water which is from the sink in the shower go into the grey water tank so yeah it's no difference for us. Right. Except that it goes for the worms. And nice size shower in here too. Yep so I went for a bigger shower which actually backs onto the wardrobe in the bedroom because I'm an occupational therapist and I put my OT hat on and I wanted it big enough that when we're really old we can put a shower chair in there and the towel rail is actually a grab rail when it's on the studs and things like that so I'm sort of future-proofing here. Yeah and it really is a good idea to future-proof like that and not only for when you get old also just if you get an injury or something like that it's always good to think about. A hundred percent. And then your bedroom is behind us here. Yep so it's just one bedroom in the house and um yep this is it. Lovely again look at those views. Yep having the sunrise come in the morning and no curtains obviously there's no neighbours so we don't need curtains and waking up and looking at the view looking at the stars in the middle of the night it's just stunning yeah and this is a king-size bed which was the biggest bed I thought would comfortably fit in here. It is a great size bed and then your wardrobe behind us here. Yeah so the wardrobe is just shelves because I don't own things that need hanging up and so it's also the linen cupboard so it's got the linen in it and then just things that we're not quite sure where to put go in the wardrobe. Nice way to keep it all simple. Yep definitely. I like it. And even more book storage in here. Yeah there's a converted yeah the bed here is more books because I ran out of room obviously in the other end of the house so this is a section of the biography autobiography so I just moved a whole section of books into here I can curl up in bed and read an autobiography or something like that they're right on hand. And so you're not living in this home full-time right now but the plan is to retire here in the future? Definitely and hopefully even before then depending on where we're based in Auckland at the moment so I come down as often as I can and I work from here sometimes as well in my off clinic days which is really great and yeah eventually this is where we'll be. And how are you finding the place working out for you so far? It's exactly as I pictured it in my head which is pretty good because I'm quite a big daydreamer and so that's been lovely and it's a walk-in and I go after my crazy Auckland week and it's just you can't not relax here. And can we talk about the cost that was involved in building this home? Sure so the house itself is up around $450,000 but because I'd sold my Auckland home to buy it and comparing to Auckland prices it actually seems like a pretty good size mortgage it's doable. Making a space my own has been a really interesting journey because I've planned this house in my head years ago and then the tweaks and then going oh actually no I want this and no now I want this and it's been a really lovely way for me to put myself into the house. People have said oh it's a perfect rosy house because it kind of is it's me all over the house and it is the designing it from scratch was lovely it was like I'm really proud because I'd never designed a house before I've never built a house before and so thinking about what did I want I wanted off grid and I wanted the sun and I wanted the views and I wanted the community and I've kind of got all of that so yeah I feel really privileged for having this and so everything's now leading towards living here permanently eventually. Well Rosie this home is absolutely beautiful I love what you've created here with the shipping container home and I just cannot get over the incredible view that you have from your property. Thank you so much for sharing it with me. Thank you for coming and having a look. My pleasure. Cheers. What Rosie has created here is nothing short of brilliant this is a wonderful home that perfectly encapsulates her ideas and philosophies and the way that she wants to live in the world and ultimately for all of the trials and tribulations of creating a place like this getting to sit back here in a couch like this and enjoy that view at the end of the day makes everything more than worthwhile.