Shipping Container Update

So two years ago I wrote a blogpost about getting our shipping container and in the post I said I would update as we worked on it. Well basically we were so busy over the past two years that we did LITERALLY nothing with it except for storing a bunch of stuff in it. This past summer though- my husband and I were determined to paint it and add some shelving to it to help organize our storage bins. 

If you didn't read the previous post here is the link: 

Quick recap of that post: We really needed storage space and didn't want to build a shed and ended up finding out we could purchase a used shipping container at our local port. We found a company that sold them and wound up paying roughly the cost of a shed for one but it was already put together and ready to go. The downside is it's a bit of an eyesore and we were determined to give it a facelift once we found the time. Finally two years later we found the time. 

Shipping Container Facelift Step 1: Prepping the outside 

We had to prep metal on the outside to be able to accept the paint. This involved removing all the rust. This by far was the longest part of the entire painting process. We used our angle grinder with a special steel wool attachment to physically sand off all the rust. This was done over the course of a couple days mostly by my husband during times when the baby was napping. We ended up going through a lot more attachments than we originally thought we would need. We bought two initially and ended up going through six. Thankfully they weren't very expensive (Roughly $5 an attachment). 

Step 2: Purchasing the Paint 

We were told by the company that we bought the container from that we would need to use exterior acrylic paint if we ever wanted to paint it. We were hoping to paint it the same color as our house for it to blend in. This ended up not being possible. To be fair I didn't do a vast search of paint stores or anything so there is a possibility that someone could color match paint but Lowes isn't it. We knew the previous owner got the house paint from Lowes and so we went there but learned that the only exterior acrylic paint they have is already in pre-determined colors. Thankfully they had a gray that I thought would compliment the color pallet of our house so we decided to go with that. We wanted to apply two coats so we purchased 5 gallons of paint total. We used Rust Oleums outdoor exterior acrylic paint in gray. 

Step 3: Painting the container

This ended up being the quickest part of the entire process. We decided to rent a paint sprayer from our local equipment rental place. Boy let me tell you how much that was worth it! It would've taken us FOREVER to paint that thing by hand. We were able to apply each coat in roughly a half hour of time. It took longer to clean the actual sprayer than it did to paint the container. 

We rented the sprayer for 24 hours total- we applied a coat of paint in the early afternoon once we got home from the equipment rental store and our baby was napping. My husband did the actual spraying part and I just made sure the part that fed from the 5 galloon bucket didn't run out of paint. We ended up purchasing a cheap 5 gallon bucket to pour the paint into for the sprayer. Most sprayers are designed to feed from a 5 galloon bucket. 

We did the second coat the next day in the morning leaving just enough time to clean the sprayer and return it to the rental place. We were trying to allow for the longest dry time possible between coats. 

You for sure want to wear something to protect yourself from the paint while using the sprayer. It does spray fine particles of paint back at you. We also wore dust masks to protect our lungs. Also anything you can remove from the area that you don't want fine paint particles getting on I would highly recommend.

Step 4: Building shelves

We had a lot of rubbermaid bins in our container for storage that were stacked on top of each other in the back of the container. We knew that if we built some shelves we could maximize the full height of the container and allow for more storage. My dad and my husband built these basic shelves out of plywood and 2X4s and we are now able to store twice as many bins than previously. The shelves are freestanding- you do not want to put holes in your container unless you absolutely have to. I also like that we can add more as needed if we decide we need more storage. 

Overall: 

Overall I'm really glad with how it turned out. Our container looks like it belongs in our yard now and no longer looks like an eye sore. Plus we are able to  store so much more inside of it and it is a lot more organized when we need to find things. In addition to the bins, we keep all of our outdoor furniture inside of it in the winter and my husbands motorcycle. We basically use it as an additional garage. One of the other things that I love about our decision to purchase the container instead of building a shed is that if we decide to move at a later point in time then we can pack the shipping container and take it with us. We do have to pay for a truck to come out and move it but that fee is significantly cheaper then renting a truck to move all of the stuff inside it.