I cannot believe that I had a container house built in Thailand, during the pandemic.
It all started with a conversation with some local friends as I was staying in Thailand already. When I mentioned buying a condo, everyone said to buy a house instead. That seemed unrealistic with the Thai laws for property. The universe provides when we are ready. This topic manifested in, a plot of land outside the city for me till my death, meaning I can’t pass it on. As well as all the people it took to pull this project together and bring this container house to life. Well, it all started back in the US before Mike died, with our project ideas on a tiny house and homestead. But building a container house was one of the styles we had researched.
My partner in all of this and the only person who could translate what was in my head to reality went to the land. Bare-boned as it was, a huge pond that took up 1/3 of the property, no fencing, and overgrown grasses and shrubs. He excitedly told me about this opportunity, and we began the journey of building a container house in the middle of a pandemic 8-hour drive to the ocean. Literally, at a time ships are stuck at sea. If I do it again, I would buy brand new reefer containers. After a few months of searching, we found 3 20-foot used containers.
The pieces started to come together, and the house form shaped.
Bit by bit, team by team, we wrapped up the construction of our house, leaving only a few tasks for us to tackle independently. The journey of choosing a kitchen and deciding on the lighting fixtures was an educational one, especially since we had no prior experience, and I faced a significant language barrier. Throughout the container house construction, I expanded my Thai vocabulary significantly and became familiar with the various construction materials and brands available in Thailand. After six months, amidst the peak of the virus outbreak in Chiang Mai, where we were living in a tiny one-bedroom condo, we made the move. The first night was spent in a house without a kitchen and with the flooring barely laid down.
Gradually, everything started falling into place. However, nature had its plans. Our fruit trees suffered losses during the first rainy season due to flooding, and the yard was flooded once again during the second rainy season. Consequently, we elevated the entire yard and constructed a retaining wall at the back.
The plot is situated on an old rice field with clay soil. One side of the house is positioned higher than the other, creating a natural slope. We have now engineered the land to divert water away from the yard and the house towards the pond and canal, provided they aren’t already full. This rainy season, our third year here, witnessed our plans functioning seamlessly. The transformation from a raised platform to a level slab, visible in the photos, could have been preempted with better initial groundwork. In retrospect, we would have layered new clay, compacted it thoroughly, and then erected a retaining wall around the pond. It’s a learning curve; clay shifts significantly, and concrete is prone to cracking.
To combat the elements, we’ve implemented an annual maintenance routine. This includes painting the container every winter post-rainy season, sealing and painting the concrete slab, and maintaining the bathrooms. Opting for a container house in Thailand seemed like a more straightforward, quicker option initially…
Now, three years in, we’re still enhancing the container house, incorporating upgrades like a larger storage shed, an extended patio, a new retaining wall, and replacing trees lost to weather or damaged by pets and children. We’ve begun developing the area behind the pond for a garden grow house and installed a semi-permanent bamboo house in the front for guests’ sleepovers and gatherings.
Today this is how it looks. I would say the almost-finished container house was built in Thailand. It feels like a vacation rental. There is a very outdoor connect with nature theme here with lots of outdoor living space and an open-air bathroom en-suite upstairs, to a kitchen with a fold-down table on the wall. The loud sound of nature is deafening, but a welcomed change from city life.
Is it perfect? It IS imperfectly perfect; this container house project was affordable enough for someone like me and it’s surrounded by nature like I had dreamed of. Is it for everyone? Of course not.
The canines that safeguard the palace!
