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4 Stories, consists of 18 40′ shipping containers forming a ring around a central atrium like vertical space 32 feet tall by 40×40 wide in the center. The four stories total a square footage of 5120 sqft not counting the 4 40′ towers at each corner of the castle. Each tower level has a floor space of 64 sqft, for a total of 1024 square feet within all 4 towers. There is a 10 foot round dome skylight on the roof which lets in plenty of sunlight to grow many species of plants and even trees INSIDE the castle.

This modern ranch style home looks large and inviting because of the picture windows, minimal landscaping, and lighting. The siding is painted in Graphite by Benjamin Moore, which has blue undertones that carry through the roof, porch, and walkway. If you want a large home that doesn’t stand out or take over your landscaping, a sprawling L-shaped modern ranch style home will do the job nicely. As such, we love the painted brick, contrasting roofline, and wood doors on this home.
Minimalist home design
The loft rises roughly three feet above the container roofline. These include that they can be less expensive to build or buy, especially if you are buying one that needs repairs and renovations. There aren’t stairs, which can be an advantage for seniors looking to downsize.
The rear of the house doesn’t have to be a glass wall, but I like it because it just looks nice, and will give the interior space a large feel opening onto the back patio. Your eye probably catches one of two things about the house, both of which are worth describing in detail. First is the absolutely huge picture frame window that takes up almost half the side of the container. Together with the glass front doors on the end of the container, this window brings in tons of natural light. While ranch-style homes can be less expensive to buy or build, there are disadvantages to them.
Built From the 1930s to Mid-to-Late 1970s
Modern contemporary ranch homes often have interesting roof lines and porch features. While these can sometimes be challenging to design, they’re also fun features that can show off your home’s personality. The gray accent panels on both sides of this home present an illusion of larger windows and balance out the angles.
The Ranch Style modular home, also known as the rancher or the rambler, originated here in the United States and is known for its short stature and minimal exterior decoration. It is typically only one story tall and is usually either an asymmetrical rectangle or an ‘L’ shape. Ranch modular homes are generally found in warmer areas as their iconic short roofs aren’t very good at dealing with a heavy snowfall. If you like the ranch style, but would like to build in a colder climate, adding a steeper roof to your prefab house is an easy fix. Thanks to their simple design, Ranches tend to be fairly inexpensive to build. A big plus for ranch style homes is that they’re easy to add modular additions or even a second story to once the home has already been built.
What Is a Ranch-Style House? | Pros & Cons
In the main area right in the center of the space, there is room for 2 long conference tables. With Jon’s engineering background and Kristen’s eye for design, our family business evolved to respond to our customer’s desire for homes that are tailored to their family’s needs. Using a combination of stacked or adjoined 20ft and 40ft containers, we will create your dream home. Shipping containers are the PERFECT base to start building your off grid home or cabin. If you build a traditional home or cabin and ever have to move, you can’t take your home with you, which forces you to sell it and start from scratch. While this type of small design is probably best for a weekend cabin or short-term rental, some people might find a small container home with a loft suitable for full-time occupancy.
The rooms are open, and ranch-style house floor plans can lend themselves to easy entertaining. So back to the original question, “What is a ranch-style house? ” If you see a single-story, sprawling home built at ground level, it’s most likely a ranch-style house. So I tried to keep costs below $25k for this next 2 story 2560 square foot Container Home. The primary idea of course being affordability and simplicity, plus the added benefit of a good sized 3 bedroom home design. This beach-y midcentury modern ranch home is bright and airy with a fresh coat of paint, modern finishes, and wood accents.
Split-level Ranch
There are several variations of this design, giving a total square footage of 800 square feet using two 40' containers. This is a variation of the previous 2-bedroom home, with the same amount of square footage using two 40' containers. With the containers sitting next to each other, the two interior sides are taken out. You have the living, dining, and kitchen areas in the center of the home with the bathroom being accessible from this area and located behind the kitchen. The grid-pattern windows on this Spanish rustic modern ranch style home add character and visual interest. The white-painted stucco looks fresh and updated against black accents and finally, the beautiful stained wood garage door pulls things together.
If you’re scrolling through homes on real estate websites and see ranch-style houses, don’t look for cattle in the backyard. 4 large helix wind turbines and a solar panel array with 48 solar panels generate a combined power of 44,000 watts. Since they built so many ranch-style homes, these homes are readily available in most parts of the country. They’re often available at lower prices, especially if they need updates, making them a great choice for families looking for their first home.
While single-story ranch-style homes lost popularity in the 1970s, they’re a perfect fit for smaller families. Believed to have originated in California during the 1930s, a time when the Golden State saw plenty of population growth, these simple homes have several features that set them apart. Walking just left of your living area, you could place a wall that would separate your bedroom space. Make sure to cut in and place windows in each room as well as cutting space to place in an A/C unit. Backcountry Containers crafts custom container homes specific to your unique needs and location. By customer demand, what started as primarily single unit container homes, has quickly grown to multi-container custom homes.
We love the pop of color on the teal door, and the A-frame porch and light fixture add visual interest. The porch feels like an extension of the yard and walkway, which is characteristic of a true ranch. With massive curb appeal, modern updates, and trending color palettes, you will love the modern ranch style homes on this list. We will walk you through what is a ranch style house, and also break down design options, features, and suggestions when upgrading your ranch style house. Ranch-style homes tend to have larger windows than other styles of homes and sliding glass doors that lead to a patio or deck area outside. Some ranch-style homeowners have updated their home’s rear doors by replacing sliding glass doors with French doors.
Technically, we could add another 8 feet to the width and increase the common area floor space by 33% to 960 square feet, and that would only increase costs by about $3000-$5000 in materials. This next design is a spin on the above design, but with a sun deck and sliding glass door atop the ground floor. This contemporary unit has everything the first has, and the addition of an additional 160 square foot sun deck.

Adding stone and wood accents helps ground the space and connect it to the outdoors. Moreover, the U-shaped profile allows for unique, contrasting design elements without losing symmetry. This design is the smallest on the list and uses a single 40' shipping container, making just 320 square feet of living space. Cutting a door into the side as your entrance, you would walk into your living space with the kitchen just off to the right. The two containers on each side will form the outer walls and contain the bedrooms and bathroom.
This is well under the $50k minimum and the $100k maximum budgeted for this project. This leaves $18,650 to purchase/build the solar and wind combo system. If you shop around you can buy an acre or more of land for about $30k-$40k here in southern California.
Assuming you could find them again, you’re looking at about $22,500 for all 9 containers. Pretty cheap considering that’s a total of 2880 square feet of floor space. Technically, I could add another 8 feet to the width and increase the common area floor space by 33% to 960 square feet, but that would increase costs by $3000-$5000 more in materials. The container home is slightly elevated above ground level on a series of concrete piers, then surrounded by an expansive deck on two sides.