A Couple Stacked 2 Shipping Containers Together And Turned It Into Their Dream Home

Former residents of Vancouver, Washington, Dave and Jaimie were just like any other hard-working couple at the start of the 2010s. They had a mortgage to pay, and free time was becoming increasingly limited with each passing week. We get the feeling that many of you can relate to that!

To put it bluntly, life had become a grind for Dave and Jaimie — and they weren’t cool with it. The duo, who have three kids together, then began to look forward and reassess their personal goals. What did they hope to achieve over the next few years? Well, their main aim was simple enough, to a degree.

Yes, Jaimie and Dave were desperate to escape the funk in which they found themselves. But here’s the tricky part: the duo knew that the only way to do that was to kiss goodbye to their mortgage payments and any other outstanding debts. Easier said than done — was this a realistic aim?

Dave and Jaimie certainly thought so. In fact, the couple saw a potential route to reaching their goal by radically downsizing. The dad was particularly enthusiastic about it, as he recalled during an episode of the YouTube channel Living Big in a Tiny House in December 2019.

Speaking to host Bryce Langston, Dave says, “We were stuck in a rut. [And] I’m like, ‘I know we can do something different. I think we can make this happen. What do you think? Let’s go down this path and try it out.’” On that note, he and Jaimie made a life-changing decision in 2014.

After thinking it over, Jaimie and Dave took the plunge and sold their Vancouver house. They went on to use some of the cash to buy land in Cowlitz County, Washington: 5 acres, to be exact. In total, that cost the pair roughly $65,000. The mom provided a few more details on their blog, That Tiny Life Love.

Jaimie wrote, “We found our property on Craigslist from a private party for cheap. When we purchased it, it was a goat trail along the side of the mountain.” You don’t get that with suburban listings! As for their plans for the land, the husband and wife had an intriguing idea in mind.

Yep, Dave and Jaimie wanted to create their “tiny home” from a couple of shipping containers. Now you might be surprised by their choice of core construction materials. But they had sound reasons behind their selection, with the mom shedding some light on the matter during their appearance on Living Big in a Tiny House.

While chatting to an intrigued Langston, Jaimie says, “Dave has always been in metalwork. And so we thought, ‘How hard is it to stick a couple of containers together? It’s like Legos, [sic] right?’ Right!” But as things turned out, the project proved to be anything but child’s play.

You see, one of the biggest risks that came with this project didn’t even involve the actual build. Despite buying the land, Jaimie and Dave still needed an occupancy permit to legally move in once the containers were finished. Without it, they’d be in trouble. So, the pair wanted to keep local officials in the loop as their plans progressed.

Did it work, though? You bet! As Dave explains, “[The officials] totally helped us out. We were like the first ones to do this crazy new kind of home in their county, and they were like, ‘[We] gotta make it happen.’”

There was another risk to contend with, too — the sheer cost of the project. Sure, Jaimie and Dave had their savings pot to dip into, but neither of them were prepared for the amount of money they’d have to spend. The mother-of-three provided further insight on that front on the YouTube show.

Jaimie says, “We didn’t realize that to turn on the water is $10,000. To turn on the electricity is $9,000. To put in a septic [tank] is $12,000, and our containers [were also expensive]. We were almost out of money before we started. But you can’t get a conventional loan on these kinds of builds.”

Despite those issues, though, Dave and Jaimie still pressed ahead. They finally got cracking in June 2015 when the shipping containers arrived on their land. The largest of the two was 40 feet in length, while the other one was half the size. The plan was to stack the latter on top of the former.

And it’s fair to say that the first two months were especially grueling. Jaimie and Dave didn’t take any time off work during that spell, only focusing on the project at night and across the weekend. Yet in August 2015 their progress came to a sudden halt for an unforeseen and deeply concerning reason.

What happened? Well, Jaimie provided the stark details on Living Big in a Tiny House. She says, “We’d cut out all the windows [in the containers], we got them craned in onto our foundation. We were in the process of finishing off our structural welding [and] railing. About midway through that process, Dave had a major brain bleed.”

Jaimie continues, “It was called an intracranial hemorrhage. It was spontaneous, there was no known underlying effect. Dave called me and said, ‘Something’s wrong, I can’t feel my arm.’ So I instantly came driving home, and when I got here, he was half-way up the driveway. As soon as I pulled up, I could tell that he’d had a stroke or a seizure.”

It was an incredibly serious situation. And things could’ve gotten a whole lot worse. You see, Dave was fighting to stay awake until Jaimie returned, telling her this as he collapsed into her grasp. Apparently, the consequences of him losing consciousness in his condition would probably have been fatal at that stage.

Mind you, even though Dave was in a very bad way, he didn’t stop thinking about the project for a second. Jaimie recalls, “He was laying in the hospital bed, right before they life-flighted him for surgery, and he barely whispered, ‘I don’t have time for this. We’re building a house!’”

But it didn’t look like Dave would get that time in all honesty. Jaimie says, “The prognosis was very very poor [for] the kind of bleed he’d had and where it was in his brain. It was so poor that [the doctors] didn’t even want to do surgery, because it was so deep. They were afraid of more damage they’d do.”

Yikes! Despite how bleak it all appeared, though, Dave survived this terrifying ordeal. And his wife was by his side every moment. Yes, Jaimie refused to leave his hospital room for five days. They even shared the same bed. She was steadfast in her belief that their lives together had some way to go yet.

So, what happened next for the couple? Jaimie informs the Living Big in a Tiny House cameras, “By the end of the first week of having [Dave] home, I got him into five different therapy appointments. And we worked around the clock for three months to re-establish his speech [and] his feelings.”

Yet here’s where it gets really interesting. While all this was going on, the shipping container project wasn’t put on the back-burner. Far from it. In fact, it played a crucial role in helping Dave’s recovery from the brain bleed. How’s that possible? Surely that kind of work would’ve been too much for him?

Jaimie reveals, “[Dave’s’] therapist actually used [the building of] our deck and the stairs as part of his therapy. To learn the cognitive, problem-solving parts again. The dexterity with his fingers, the feeling and sensation with the screws and the drill.” It wasn’t the easiest of approaches for her to accept at first, though.

“It was scary for me to watch [Dave] using power tools [in the early days]!” Jaimie admits. “[But] it was [therapeutic for him]. It gave him a purpose and a reason to get out of bed every day, [or] off the couch. So it slowed us down, but oh my goodness it made us so strong.”

Who’d have thought Dave could return to action so quickly? And it definitely had a positive influence on his recovery. Going into the spring of 2016, the Insider website reported that Jaimie’s husband had got roughly 85 percent of the feeling back on his affected side.

Given the severity of Dave’s condition just eight months beforehand, that’s incredible! He really valued the importance of his work on the shipping containers as a result. The dad tells Langston, “Right after that stroke, [focusing on the build] really helped me regain all those nerves inside. You know, the connections that your brain makes to your body.”

Around the time that Dave had recovered all that feeling in his body, work on the shipping container project had finally come to an end. Overall, it took ten months to finish everything, and the resulting home looked stunning. It’s even more remarkable knowing what the couple went through along the way.

Thanks to the YouTube clip, we can take a tour of the finished abode. Let’s start on the lower level, once simply the larger of the two bare shipping containers. This area now houses both the living space and a kitchen, and it’s wonderfully cozy. Then again, there were a few other challenges in putting it all together, beyond Dave’s condition.

The first issue was the flooring. Now, while you might like the funky wooden pattern, Jaimie wasn’t so keen on it initially. And that’s an understatement! As she tells Living Big in a Tiny House, “This was a rough one for me. We bought the floor thinking it would contrast really well with our hickory cabinets.”

“When we initially put it in, there was nothing else in the space and I cried,” Jaimie continues. Dave then chimes in, “She’s like, ‘This is the ugliest floor ever! This is the worst, I can’t believe we did this!’” But after giving it some thought, the Washington resident did eventually come around on it. Ripping it out would’ve been a real pain.

Jaimie even went so far as to say that she loved the flooring now: quite the turnaround! Anyway, that didn’t prove to be the only issue the couple faced on the ground floor. Without wishing to state the obvious, most furniture is made to fit inside actual homes, not tiny spaces. So, how did they go about sourcing their couch?

Well, Dave and Jaimie could’ve gone for an easier option — yet they eschewed this course of action. She explains, “I know that a lot of tiny homes have built-ins, which are awesome for the storage, but I really wanted a more contemporary look in our home. So, we went to a lot of furniture stores with a tape measure looking for one that would fit our tiny space.”

Still, all those hard yards paid off eventually. The couch Jaimie and Dave chose is perfectly sized, giving them lots of room to play with. “We love it,” she beams to the camera. As for their long kitchen, the couple note that they picked up on an important lesson.

Jaimie says, “We did learn through the process that when you do things on a smaller scale, you can go with higher-end finishes because you only have to buy a small quantity. So, we did very nice cabinets, counter-tops, and stainless steel appliances.” And the results are undeniably attractive.

Beyond the kitchen, you’ll find the bathroom and a walk-in closet to round off the ground floor. As for the upstairs area, a spiral staircase connects the two shipping containers. This space houses a bed, a comfy armchair, and a television. Again, due to the size of the furnishings up here, though, Jaimie was unable to buy nightstands that would fit.

Thankfully, it didn’t prove to be much of an issue, as Dave just knocked up a couple from scratch to fit the snug little space. This floor also includes a decking area outside, which was built on the roof of the bottom container. A lovely idea, and the perfect place to end our tour.

Mind you, Jaimie and Dave haven’t rested on their laurels since completing the house. For instance, in July 2020 the latter constructed a bridge between the second floor and another space on their property. Plus, the dad plans to finish work on a zipline during the warmer months of 2022 as well.

All in all, the couple couldn’t be happier. As Jaimie said to Insider in March 2021, “We make a conscious decision every single day to live the best life we can, because it might be the only day we have left. We feel really blessed. [This house] has been more than we ever dreamed it would be.”