Lulu is a single mother living in California. When she decided she didn't want a home that would burden her with a hefty mortgage, she did something most people would never even consider.

Lulu built her own home...out of a storage container. It was ″a shipping container that brought things back and forth from China,″ Lulu said. She found it for free, then fixed it up for about $4,000.

After getting the container, she fixed it up by adding two-by-fours, drywall, insulation, plumbing and more. She did it all by herself, even though her only prior experience was remodeling a boat. The place was ready to live in after a month.

The storage unit currently acts as a kitchen, living room and play area for her daughter, all in one.  ″When you don't have money, you just get creative,″ she said. ″I had to go to the junkyard and be like...how can I convert that into a closet?″

Lulu made due with the one unit, but it wasn't a lot of space (only 120 square feet), so Lulu decided to expand. She wound up creating a second part of their home after acquiring an 8x16 flatbed trailer. It acts as a bedroom for both her and her daughter. 

Lulu sleeps on the bottom, and her daughter sleeps on the loft bed above it. It has a low ceiling but can easily fit her daughter and her friends.

Lulu said her daughter isn't always a fan of their living space, and that's OK. ″At times she's been like, 'This totally sucks'...and other times she's really proud and shows it off.″ Lulu added, ″She's definitely complained at times, but I also know...we have spent way more hours [together] than [we] would if I had to pay rent."

″This was really a choice about...how many hours do we have to our life and how do I want to spend these hours,″ she said. ″Do I wanna...work more than 10, 20, 30 hours in a week so that I can pay rent, to have a big house, so that I can be like a happy normal mom?″

Lulu's not done building just yet. She also plans to take these materials to construct her own Japanese tea room, and will also be building a greenroom.

Lulu explained that she believes everything we own is merely temporary. ″Material things, all of it is on borrow,″ she said. ″None of this is ours, and we try to secure ourselves in these identities like my house, my wife, my car, my children, my career." She added, "I showed this to my brother in Argentina and he said, ‘you’ve always like [sic] poverty with a lot of style. Always like elegant poor.'"