We purchased our shipping container in June of 2022 with plans of moving before the end of they year. Purchasing the container gave us more flexibility when it came to timing and would allow us to utilize the container in St. Croix. We knew we wanted to pair down our belongings by donating, selling, and throwing out things we no longer needed. It was hard to say what this would look like in the end but we decided to purchase a used twenty foot shipping container in the hopes that everything would fit, the alternative would have been a forty foot container and this seemed excessive. This container cost us five thousand dollars, and came with a sea worthy certification.
The container was delivered by a gentleman driving a Ford F-350 towing a tilt deck trailer. He was able to back into our backyard and slide it off with the tilt deck. Having never purchased a shipping container we really didn't know what to expect. The exterior was dented and rusty especially around dents, the floor inside appeared to be squares of plywood screwed to the steel frame and some of these squares appeared to be loose. Considering this container would be holding all of our worldly possessions we decided to make a few minor improvements.
We purchased a gray primer that is designed to help stop/prevent rust to paint the outside. On the inside we purchased a couple of roles of flex tape to tape up seams between plywood squares and two cans of blue max liquid rubber to put over that. The liquid rubber has a consistency of something like gack for those of you raised in the ninety's, and off-gasses for a while after application. Fortunately, with house projects, to get our houses on the market, we had a little bit of time between doing this and packing the container.
Another advantage of owning the shipping container is the ability to personalize it. We decided to have a going away party and let guests paint anything they wanted on the outside. We tapped over all identifying container information to protect it, but this still left a lot of room for people to be creative. A huge thank you to our guest!
Due to challenges with getting our house on the market it took until January, 2023 for us to get the container completely packed, loaded on a truck, and shipped. There are turn key solutions to getting someone to pick up a shipping container, and manage the process of getting it across the country and onto a ship, however, we were unsuccessful when it came to getting one of these solutions set up. We ended up needing to coordinate the process ourselves, which meant hiring a semi-truck driver and crane, scheduling them to show up at the same time, setup the sea shipment and arrange drop off at a time that worked for the driver and port. On the receiving side we coordinated a trip to fly down to meet the container, pay excise tax, work with customs to approve paperwork, coordinate another truck driver with a crane, and work with a storage facility to store the container while we make the move and build our house. This process involved a lot of people, time, and questions I never thought I would ask, such as, does the quote you gave me for this crane include rigging and fuel?
We were successful! The process was not without setbacks and frustrating phone calls but in the end I think it was rewarding doing this ourselves and understanding how the whole process works. Customs was the part us, and a lot of people I talked to dreaded the most, see our article on getting household goods through customs. However, this part of the process was far easier than navigating shipping companies. Follow up, and constant communication my recommendation.