The Tiny Fridge (and other big adjustments)

Living full-time at BaHa Ranch is going to be quite an adjustment for both of us. Because of the small space, we bought a tiny refrigerator. I'd show you a picture, but it's already down there and I'm not. Basically, it's the kind of fridge that you probably had if you ever lived in a dorm. We're going to have to become wiser about buying groceries that need refrigeration, and that's a good thing! Probably half the things in our refrigerator right now have been there for much too long, and the other half doesn't even need to be in there.

Another thing we'll have to adjust to is the lack of light switches. I wonder how many times I'll walk into the bathroom in the middle of the night and swipe my hand against the wall next to the door? I've had years and years of being conditioned to the fact that that's what you do when you want a light to come on. Here's the lighting system at BaHa Ranch:

The three white solar lamps that you see in this picture are our current lighting system.
These three will soon be joined by the six additional lights that we recently purchased.
They operate by pulling a string at the bottom, and actually put out quite a bit of light!

And laundry. Oh dear, I think I have the most anxiety about the laundry! We have a washer and dryer, nothing fancy, but they work great and I am accustomed to using them. However, in the interest of using less electricity, I'm going to start using a solar-powered clothes dryer (AKA: a clothesline). And to wash the clothes? We may try to hook up the washer and use a water-conservation technique that utilizes the rinse water from one load to fill the wash cycle of the next load. If that doesn't work, I saw this on Amazon:

The Manual Washer Hand-washing machine

 And, I have a nice big plastic bucket that would work to manually wash clothes in. Plus, I've already bought some Octagon soap, which is supposedly great for manually washing clothes. 

   

Catching up...

I need to get ya'll caught up on what we've done so far. Basically, we are trying to go from this:

To this:

And eventually to this:

OK. The first pic is of our first actual shipping container, which we refer to as "the box." The second pic is of the interior design of the first box, which we are working on right now. We will live in the first box for about a year before continuing construction. Why? We are paying as we go - we don't want to take out any loans for this house. 

The third pic is of how the house will look when we are completely done. We'll be adding four more boxes to the first one, and a roof over most of the structure that will be designed to direct rainwater into our rain catcher. Part of the structure will be left exposed and made into a "green roof" - a roof which will be covered with sod and plants. Additionally, a windmill will be added to generate electricity when we can afford one. We are also taking advantage of the hot, bright, ever-present Texas sun by utilizing solar lights where possible, and putting windows in optimal locations to provide light without adding too much heat. 

So what have we done so far? 

We've poured a foundation:

And framed out the inside:

And we've built a shed to put things in:

 Yay! So now we're all caught up on what's happened so far. We're kinda winging it here - there's not a lot of info out there on how to construct something like this. Sure, a lot of people are getting into building with shipping containers, and there are some great pictures out there for inspiration, but practical information (like how to frame out a window on  a structure that's naturally wavy) is hard to come by. So I hope documenting all of this will make container home building more accessible for anyone who wants to try it. AND I'm hoping to hear from people who have done this type of building before, cause we'd love some advice!