Albuquerque woman hops aboard the shipping container home craze

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Radically downsizing into a tiny home is something that more people are considering these days to escape the heavy costs of owning your own home. And now there is a new craze sweeping the nation, shipping container homes.

In a world full of bigger is better, Lea Pino, an interior designer, started to think minimal.

“I always wanted to do a small space after living in New York City in a tiny apartment and it just kind of opened my eyes on how living small you can actually live a pretty big life,” said Pino.

But this isn’t your average 320-square-foot tiny home, it’s a repurposed structure, “a container fit the lot really well it was long and narrow and I liked the idea of being able to have it delivered on-site with the roof and exterior walls already there,” Pino said.

And although it’s a shipping container near Old Town, it blends into the historic neighborhood.

“I like the idea of reusing something, it’s sort of an eco-friendly way to build and I always thought it was an interesting modern juxtaposition to all these sort of square adobe houses that are so common here in the Southwest which I also love I thought they worked really well together,” Pino added.

For Pino this movement is more than sustainability, “I wanted to have a way to have a flexible sort of income and lifestyle, for me it’s an expression of design but it’s also my future,” Pino said.

Currently, she is using it as a vacation rental property. She said the project cost her $65,000 and she says its affordability was a huge draw.