Shipping Container Homes & Buildings: 4 Bedrooms Shipping Container Home with Two-Story Atrium in the Middle of the Home, Waterloo, New York

How the Shipping Container Home Was Built
Location

Containers	4 containers (4x 40ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	2
Sold price	$335,000 (2025)
Area	1,760 sq ft (160 sqm)
Location	Waterloo, New York
Year	2020

This 1,760-square-foot residence rests on a five-acre parcel along Caroline Road in the Town of Waterloo, just a mile north of the New York State Thruway and within the Waterloo Central School District.

Completed in 2020, the one-of-a-kind home is built from shipping containers and features a dramatic two-story atrium at its center, a floating staircase, and a striking second-floor bridge. Its vivid blue exterior is complemented by floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides, flooding the interior with natural light.

On the main level, the kitchen offers butcher-block countertops, stainless-steel appliances, an island with seating, and a walk-in pantry. The adjoining great room showcases vaulted ceilings and an electric fireplace as its centerpiece. Also on the first floor are a cozy mudroom with built-in lockers, a bedroom with a sliding barn door, and a full bath.

Upstairs, you’ll find three bedrooms, including a spacious primary suite with a luxurious soaking tub and dual vanity. The two additional bedrooms are designed with built-in loft-style beds. A laundry room is also conveniently located on the second floor. A large bridge spans the atrium, connecting the bedrooms on opposite sides of the home.

Outdoors, a generous wraparound deck invites relaxation, while the property also includes a detached 1,120-square-foot garage complete with a heated full bathroom.

Heating and Cooling

Cooling Features: Central Air

Heating Features: Propane, Forced Air

Number Of Fireplaces: 1

Utilities

Sewer: Septic Tank

Water Source: Well

How the Shipping Container Home Was Built

"The #1 question we get is WHY a shipping container house? The very short answer: we love the look, we can do a lot of the work ourselves, and the build is cost-effective. But there are LOTS of good reasons to build a container home. Containers are safe and strong. Shipping containers are among the most robust structures built. They are made from steel, which is one of the strongest man-made materials. They are constructed to hold at least 25 tons of goods for shipping. This makes them great structures for natural disasters and earthquakes. A container home is a secure and safe just as any home built. They are also fun and you can do some great creative designs".

03.2021

Chris and Kate Mager light up with enthusiasm when they talk about their new home — a 1,600-square-foot custom house built from shipping containers. “You could say we’re overflowing with excitement,” Kate laughs.

In 2019, the couple decided to leave their Irondequoit home so Kate could be closer to her teaching job in Geneva. They were looking for a place with both a house and some land, but everything they saw was too expensive and too generic.

That was a hard pill to swallow after spending 15 years personalizing their 1,200-square-foot Cape in Irondequoit. “It was spectacular,” says their real estate agent, J.D. Brown of Keller Williams Greater Rochester. “Chris had transformed it himself — removing ceilings, creating a dramatic kitchen, adding wrought iron railings and an exposed staircase to a loft. He’s done incredible architectural work on his own.”

To get the distinctive, affordable home they wanted, they realized they’d have to make it themselves.

After a year of searching, they attended a bank auction and bought a five-acre wooded lot in Junius, near Waterloo, for $13,000.

“I was watching HGTV’s Container Homes and thought they were amazing,” Kate recalls. “I told Chris, and he said, ‘We can totally do that.’”

Within a week, Chris was sketching designs on graph paper. They closed on the property March 13, 2020, listed their Irondequoit house, received nine offers, and sold it in just four days.

With two children, ages 15 and 11, they rented their old home back until school ended and began researching shipping containers. Chris found a local company selling refurbished units. “There are different types,” Kate explains. “You can buy refurbished containers where the paint and rust are removed, or ‘one-trippers,’ which have only been used once. Part of the draw for us was reusing materials.”

They hired contractors to pour a concrete foundation, clear the land, and install septic, a well, and a driveway. They also had a garage built with a bathroom and laundry room. Permits from the town of Junius and Seneca County cost about $350.

Knowing construction would take months, they bought a two-bedroom, 36-foot RV to live in with their children, two rescue dogs, and a cat — expecting to stay just five months.

A Design Built for Life

Chris may be creative and handy, but his day job is installing car electronics at his company, The Remote Start Guy. To make sure the plans were structurally sound, they brought their designs to friend and architect Michael Varland.

The final plan used four high-cube shipping containers — two on each side with a lumber-framed structure in between and a slanted metal roof designed for future solar panels.

The first floor has an open-concept living area with soaring ceilings up to 23 feet high, plus an office/guest room and bathroom. Upstairs, a primary suite sits on one side, and two children’s bedrooms on the other, connected by a bridge spanning the central space.

The containers arrived on a flatbed June 16, 2020, and were craned onto 16 concrete piers. Chris and Kate cut 33 windows into the structure to maximize natural light. Kate’s must-have feature — a bright red front door — now greets every guest. “It means welcome,” she says. “We wanted something unique but also inviting. Every time I see that door, it makes me smile.”

Inside, Chris framed and insulated each container with spray foam. Many ceilings and walls keep the original corrugated metal exposed for authenticity. The exterior containers were painted before delivery, and inside, Chris removed rust and sprayed the walls white. The house retains heat in winter and stays cooler in summer, and air conditioning will be added thanks to Chris’s family’s business, Arctic Refrigeration in Batavia.

The Reality Behind the Dream

The Magers started with a $175,000 budget (excluding the land), which included the 1,000-square-foot garage and site improvements. “People try to compare our costs to a traditional house, but we’re including far more than just the structure,” Kate says.

They added about $25,000 for professional help on tasks they’d hoped to do themselves, like building the central section and welding container corners. “We even hired out the drywall,” Kate admits with a laugh. “After we did the garage bathroom together, we thought it was best for our marriage to let someone else handle the house drywall.”

Building any home is tough, Kate says, but container homes online can make it look “cheap and easy.” They learned the hard way about hidden expenses like land prep. “The online numbers are nowhere near reality,” Chris says.

Their advice: stay flexible, patient, and positive — and have a backup living plan. COVID delays stretched their five-month RV stay to nearly a year.

Still, they’re grateful. Their families pitched in, their kids learned to use tools, and they always had a warm garage bathroom and a washer/dryer. “Living in such a tiny space made us appreciate how much we achieved together,” Kate says.

Their daughter even called the build one of her favorite memories. “We’re building more than a house,” Kate says. “We’re building memories that will last a lifetime.”