VANCOUVER, Wash. — A home that's truly one-of-a-kind is the result of one man’s determination to win a bet. His friends laughed when Edward Merced said he could build the most colorful home in Vancouver out of shipping containers.
And then he did it.
Now the house is on the market for two million dollars.
“There’s 11 containers in this house,” he explains. “Eight 40s and three 20s. They're all high cube so they're all 9 1/2 foot tall.”
Tour the four thousand square foot home and you'd never guess you're walking from container to container.
“We're in two containers right now,” says Merced, standing in the master bedroom. “So right here is the center and I put this facade up here to hide it.”
Merced isn't an architect. He's a businessman who works in imports and exports. But his carefully crafted home, blending Asian influences with industrial design, has a surprise around every corner.
The dining room light is an old door. The koi pond can be enjoyed indoors as well as outside, and the bar has hand-carved Balinese wood countertops.
No wonder it was featured on the HGTV series 'Container Homes'.
“I was fishing in Costa Rica and this lady comes up to me and is like, ‘You're that guy’. I'm like what guy? ‘That guy on 'Container Homes.' I get that all the time,” says Merced.
Merced says it's going to be hard to walk away from his home.
“It's kind of a dilemma here for me and deep down I spent so much time and effort,” he says. “I know every nook and cranny. I know everything in this house."
Merced bet the house and won and he’s now planning to try his luck somewhere else.
“I feel like it's holding me back from doing something new,” he says.
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