Tag Archives: spray foam insulation

Our newly modified shipping container – soon to be recording studio iso-lounge – was delivered exactly three week’s ago today. I’ve been so excited to share pics and video of the delivery, but in that three week’s time, we’ve finished mixing one record, began mixing another record, shot a music video, released a single for one of our band’s, Moxi, began PR for it, went on a cruise to Alaska and demoed our entire yard – including our driveway, patio and front porch (more on that later)! Oh, and Bobby also finished tracking a few new songs and he wrote and recorded five new cues for TV.

*sigh*…we’re tired!

So, we’re settling back into normalcy, and are ready to share all the container details. A short summary of what we’re doing here…

The big picture is this: we are converting our existing garage into a studio space, which will be wired to a shipping container that sits next to the garage. The container will be a writing lounge and iso booth. The board and gear will be in the garage space.

Simple enough, yes. EXCEPT that, we are building a new garage on the opposite side of our property, and demoing the driveway (which leads to the existing garage). And the driveway had to be in tact to get the container into the place that we wanted. So, the container had to be delivered before demo day.

We bought the container from IPME in April, and worked with them to insulate the bottom of it, and to fabricate and install steel window and door frames. We kept the existing bamboo floors because they look amazing. And that was it – we didn’t go any further with the modification, because of our time constraints on delivery. Our demo crew had a hard start date, so we had to get the container in it’s place – which will leave us to handle electrical, a/c, insulation and drywall all on site.

Delivery day finally came, and while Bobby and I were stressing about the fact that a crane was going to pick up a 7000lb+ container and lift it up and over our house and set it down a foot away from a huge slope on the side of our property, the people doing the actual work were chilled out, calm, and very efficient. In fact, the whole delivery happened so fast – we couldn’t believe it, they were done about 2-1/2 hours after they started. Here’s how it all went down…

First up, the guys (aka, serious man-men), had to get the crane into place. Driving it across our driveway took some skillful maneuvering: 

We were concerned that the crane wouldn’t even make it down the driveway, but like I said, these guys are pros. We freak out backing our little car down the driveway, which, by the way has a rearview camera…the man-men just laughed at our stress faces.

Anyway, right as the crane footings were getting into place, our container showed up on a truck…

Adding to the surrealness of the day, our neighbor, Rick, who owns a towing company, was the man-man who showed up with our container!  Apparently, these guys work together all the time, so they stopped for a quick strategy convo, and then got to it:

And then, of course, Rick had to back his truck on down the driveway (don’t worry, he’s a pro man-man too):

I have to be honest here, one minute I was taking pictures of neighbor Rick untying the container, while it was on the truck, and the next minute, it was off the truck sitting on the driveway. I have no idea how it actually got off the truck. And then one minute later, they were attaching the crane straps to the top of the crane getting it ready to go: 

It was at about this moment that we were asked if anyone was in the house…which there was. We had someone inside hanging some shelves…and of course our fur babies were hiding in the bedroom. We were gently asked to make sure that everyone come outside until they were done.

It’s fine. These guys are professionals. Don’t worry. Just a precaution. *stress*

We cleared the house, and then…it’s lift off time! Up and over the house we go:

And. Just like that. Done.  Thanks Man-Men!

And now…um…how do these doors open…?

So, here it is! Check it out…double doors and a window on the main side. This main window will face into a window in the garage/studio. And we’ll have a deck built around the footing to tie it all together: 

The window on this end looks out on the LA-Long Beach harbor and over into Downtown LA.

The existing container doors will be fixed open, with another set of double doors with windows, adding to the visual length of the container and adding more light inside: 

We. Love. It!!   Time to celebrate!

Check out some video of the crane lifting the container over our house here. eee!

Now to finish this beauty out…if you’d like to follow along and see more about this shipping container remodel, check back here.