4 Tips To Hide Shipping Containers For A Traditional Look When Building Eco-Friendly Homes
ShareToday, greener building designs are trendy and can help you save when building a new home. Shipping containers are a great resource that can be used to build the structure of your home, but you may not want it to look like the shipping yard. Therefore, you will want to know all the tricks and design options to use shipping containers to build your home but still give it a more traditional architectural styling. Here are some tips to help hide the appearance of containers for a more traditional look when using them to build new homes:
1. Have Your Home Custom Designed Around Standard Container Dimensions
When using shipping containers as the main building material for your home, you will want to design the home around standard sizes. This means that widths of main walls need to match container sizes. Therefore, it is important to have the plans for your home drawn by a professional architect that has experience with these types of projects.
2. Use A Combination of Conventional Construction to Integrate into The Structure
While most of your home's structure will be made of shipping containers, there are some features that should use more traditional materials like wood or metal framing. These features can be things like high ceilings in a living area between containers or curved exterior walls that connect sections that are at different angles.
3. Insulate and Sheath Steal to Improve Energy Efficiency and Use Traditional Finishes
One of the problems you face with shipping containers is insulating to ensure your home is efficient. On the exterior, insulate between the ridges of the steel and sheath the container with plywood or rigid exterior panels. This sheathed surface can then be finished with more conventional materials like siding, stucco or masonry to give your home a more traditional look. Do the same with the walls inside your home and finish them with drywall, tile or other interior finishes you may want to use in different areas.
4. Using Traditional Trim and Cornice Details Inside and Outside of Your Home
To complete the traditional design of your home, you will want to finish it with traditional finish work like cornice, moldings and trim. Use these materials to add architectural details to your home and give it more of a traditional appearance, so the containers will not be noticeable and your home will look just like any other home on your street.
These are some tips that will help hide the appearance of shipping containers when building a new home for a more traditional look. If you want to build an eco-friendly home, contact a shipping container service like Go Containers to get a variety of different size containers to start building your home.