Embracing the minimalist lifestyle, Lulu, a single mother, found solace and a new beginning in the concept of tiny home living.
This new chapter wasn’t just about finding a place to stay; it was about crafting a life that allowed her to devote more time to her daughter.
When faced with the need to move, a friend’s suggestion sparked a bold idea.
“I had to move out of the house I was living in and a friend said: ‘Why don’t you just build something?”
Lulu recounts her conversation with Fair Companies, setting the stage for her unique journey.
The pursuit of education led Lulu back to school, and with this commitment, she aimed to avoid the full-time work grind just to cover rent.
Her solution was as innovative as it was unconventional: constructing a home from a shipping container.
Despite her initial reservations about the confined space, the opportunity was too good to pass up.
“I think I’m a little claustrophobic so the storage container was a little daunting, but I got the container for free,” she explains, noting its well-traveled history.
Lulu’s quest for affordable building materials took her to dumps and other unlikely places, where she gathered essentials like windows, doors, and flooring.
This phase of her project spanned a few months, followed by a month of actual construction.
Although she had experience remodeling a boat, this was her first foray into building a home from the ground up.
She tackled the interior framing, insulation, drywall, and even some plumbing, with bubble wrap serving as a barrier against condensation.
“It’s really well insulated,” Lulu observes, sometimes to the point of excess warmth.
The physical labor of cutting out spaces for doors and windows was intense, wearing out several jigsaw blades.
Yet, the result was a cozy 160-square-foot living space, complete with a play area, a couch, a bookshelf, and a kitchen equipped with the basics for daily life.
Lulu celebrates the immediate benefits of container living, emphasizing the quick transition from construction to habitation.
“The benefits of a container is you can move in right away, you have a house right away,” she says.
The home also includes a separate bathroom with a classic clawfoot tub, sink, and toilet, serviced by a propane-powered camping water heater.
As their needs evolved, Lulu expanded their living space by constructing an additional unit on a flatbed trailer, resembling a well-appointed shed with ample windows.
This new space houses Lulu’s bed and a loft for her daughter, designed to let in natural light and offer views of the night sky.
Lulu’s resourcefulness shines through in her approach to building materials, finding treasures in places most would overlook.
Her upbringing in Argentina instilled a sense of modest living, which she applies to her current lifestyle.
“When you don’t have money you just have to get creative,” she states, a testament to her ingenuity.
The entire endeavor of creating her home cost Lulu about $4,000, a sum she considers well spent in exchange for a simpler life.
She reflects on the transient nature of material possessions and the societal pressures to accumulate them.
“Material things, all of it is on borrow right, we’re all just borrowing stuff.
None of this is ours and we try to secure ourselves in these identities like my house, my wife, my car, my children, my career.
You know the bigger the more, I’m sure that I am myself and it’s like oh no, this house is really a prison and I’m tied to the bank,” she muses.
Looking ahead, Lulu has plans to further develop her living space, with a second bedroom and a greenhouse to link the bedroom to the kitchen and living area.
This expansion will give her daughter a private bedroom of her own.
Lulu’s choices are deeply rooted in the value of time, particularly the hours she can spend with her daughter, which she deems more precious than any traditional work-life balance could offer.
“I mean this was really a choice about, you know, how many hours do we have to our life and how do I want to spend those hours and really about do I want to go and work more than 10, 20, 30 hours a week so that I can pay rent to have a big house so that I can be a healthy normal mom. So this was my choice and she’s [her daughter] definitely complained at times, but I also know that we have spent way more hours than I would have if I had to pay rent,” Lulu shares, her voice a blend of determination and contentment.
See a full tour of her amazing home in the video below!
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