Dream of living in a shipping container with some serious style? The Katz Box is a tiny house made out of one or more shipping containers. The goal of the design is to be as flexible and simple as possible so that it can be tailored to the needs of each buyer. To that end, it is promoted as being, “Modular, Modifiable and Transportable.”
Here you see the Calico Home, which is the company’s flagship house. It measures 160 square feet as a single unit, but it can be scaled up to include two or three units.
The house features a fun and distinctive paint job on the outside.
While the paint is eye-catching and eccentric, it isn’t so flamboyant as to offend a lot of tastes. It should have no problem getting accepted by most tiny house communities.
The interior is surprisingly homey with none of the industrial vibes that you might expect. The furniture that you see here is designed to be adaptable so that the space can be rearranged as needed on an ongoing daily basis. You will see how this works in the next couple photos below.
Here, the small desk along the right-hand wall beneath the window has been folded up so that it can be used. The rest of the time, it can be folded against the wall.
Being able to position the desk flush against the wall is important, as you can appreciate in this photo. This is necessary in order to make room for the fold-out bed. In this way, a single room and serve as a living room or bedroom as needed.
The kitchen features the same appealing minimalism as the rest of the home. Everything is small and simple.
Because the main living space pulls double duty as the bedroom, there is room for a bathroom with a toilet and shower.
I have seen similar reconfigurable rooms before. They tend to be more popular in tiny apartments overseas, especially in crowded cities in Asia. This is the first time I think I have seen a reconfigurable modular space for sale as an on-demand item in the west (the company is based in Ohio).
It is really awesome to see a tiny house manufacturer in the US that has finally caught on to the design principles at play here. If you’d like to discover more or order your own Katz Box, visit the official website here.
