One person’s trash is another’s treasure, as the saying goes. And in this case, Berkeley, Calif.–based designer Gregory Kloehn found more than a trinket when he decided to turn an industrial waste receptacle into a mini (emphasis on "mini") micro-unit home.
Kloehn’s Dumpster houses measure 6 feet by 6 feet, just a tad larger than a camping tent.
The simple design comes complete with a sink, a stove, and a hidden toilet stowed underneath a small seating area. It also includes an outside shower, powered by propane tanks and water harvested from a 6-gallon rainwater tank on the roof. Kloehn padded the black and red walls to insulate them and attached a minibar to the door.
The retrofitting, which cost close to $2,000, took all of six months to complete and has just about everything a bachelor might need, including a sloped roof levered up to reveal windows that admit a hint of light. The roof also doubles as extra, "deck" seating, if ever one wants to host guests.
The designer admits the home is too small to serve as anyone’s residence, so he keeps the original Dumpster—appropriately enough, in hyper-dense New York City—as a place for people to come visit.
The house also wasn’t made to weather catastrophes well, as shown last year during Hurricane Sandy, when the tiny abode filled with 4 feet of water. Nonetheless, the structure still stands as a clever example of how to live with but the barest of necessities.
Maybe Oscar the Grouch was on to something.
