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Container house offers shelter after storm

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – In 2017, Hurricane Irma sent a tree right into Rob DePiazza’s St. Augustine, Florida home.

His home was destroyed, and he quickly made a decision to build his new house out of shipping containers.

"I was already thinking about containers and building with them," he says.

Two-and-a-half years later, the house is move-in ready.

"There are nine containers in total," he says. "Two on the ground are workshop space. The living space is five containers, so 1,600 square feet. I added another container on top to get the volume."

And then there is one with a mural on it for flair. He left the container floors intact, kept some old things and added a lot of artistic elements. DePiazza decided to leave some of the container walls exposed and not cover up some of the signage, such as numbers, stickers and scrapes and scratches.