Denver Couple Builds Home With Used Shipping Containers

— -- When Regan and Libby Foster set out to build a new home in Denver, Colorado, they went to the shipping yard instead of the home improvement store.

The couple’s new, 4,000-square-foot home is made of nine used shipping containers that weigh 8,500 pounds and cost the Fosters $2,200 apiece.

“The Denver market is insane and we couldn’t afford to buy something bigger so we decided to build,” Libby Foster told ABC News. “Regan researched a few different options and shipping containers stuck.”

Regan, a firefighter, did much of the home’s construction himself, starting with spending an entire day at a shipping yard to select the nine cheapest and least-used shipping containers he could find.

The couple had to rent a crane to get the shipping containers on their property and then spent just over a year building the home.

“Regan fabricated the shipping containers on site, adding window holes and door holes,” Libby said. “The front door is an actual shipping container door that Regan fabricated.”

The Fosters' own sweat equity and decision to use natural materials like plywood and concrete throughout the home kept the cost to a little more than $100 per square foot.

The couple -- who live in the home with a family of three that pays rent -- moved in about six weeks ago.

“Moving in was so anti-climactic because we worked on it for a year and a half and I was here every day for that,” Foster said. “But now it’s just fun ... it’s hard to be sad in here.”

“We like that it’s different but it definitely feels like home,” she added. “When I’m in it, it’s just where I sleep. It’s where I cook. It’s where I sweep the floors.”

Foster said the couple’s neighbors were also very gracious when it came to the process of converting a series of 8-feet-wide, 40-feet-long and 9½-feet-tall shipping containers into a suburban home.

“It definitely made me nervous but people have been pretty nice about it,” she said. “Most people have been really supportive and excited.”