I was running short on storage space. The materials and tools I had on the second floor started to get in my way. And to finish the second floor, I need to get most of that stuff cleared out.

We don’t have a garage, and I am not really interested in building one, at least not at this point. Nor do I have a garden shed, which would be useful to stash things away. The problem with either one is that breaking into them isn’t that difficult. And that is a problem in an urban environment, particularly if we intend to store tools in the shed/garage.

In short, we needed a storage option that was secure.

The solution that came to mind was a decommissioned shipping container (also called intermodal container). They are made of steel and thus a reasonably secure storage option.

Shipping containers measure eight feet in width and eight and a half feet in height. Some containers are nine and a half feet tall. These are referred to as “high-cube”. Most shipping containers you may have seen are either 40 or 45 feet long. That was way too big for our purposes. The shortest standard size is 20 feet, which appeared to be my best bet, even though I was dreaming of a 10 foot long unit. But my initial research showed that 10 footers were custom fabricated and more expensive than a standard 20 foot unit.

The big question was, where does one purchase a 20 foot long decommissioned shipping container?