When Jonica Bray, unexpectedly bought a piece of island paradise, her Reno School skills jumped into overload to turn a humble shipping container into a holiday home for her family of five.

We can’t decide what the most gorgeous part of this reno is – the beautiful transformation of a shipping container into a perfect tiny home or the story behind how Coco Cabana came about. This is a Reno School student project with a difference and Jonica Bray shared it with us…

TELL US THE STORY BEHIND YOUR BEAUTIFUL PROJECT, JONICA. WHY VANUATU?

While I was on maternity leave we moved from Sydney to Vanuatu to take some time out. During the time we were there, things took an unexpected turn and we ended up adopting a beautiful baby boy, our youngest son Hendry. With that, Vanuatu became part of our lives forever.

We have an open adoption with Hendry’s mum and birth family and when we went through the adoption process we knew that keeping his birth family and culture a part of his life was really important. In Vanuatu it’s tradition to gift your son some land when they are born. Wanting to keep as many culturally important customs as possible, we scraped together our savings and purchased the cheapest piece of paradise on the island. It would become our place to stay when we visit from Australia and holiday accomodation when we’re not there.

HOW DID YOU TRANSFORM A SHIPPING CONTAINER INTO A HOME FOR 5?

Vanuatu is a tiny island and almost everything is imported - and therefore comes at a cost. We had a small budget and also a passion for using what was already available to us on the island. Having a busy working port just around the corner, a shipping container seemed logical and also cool to use as the shell of the project.

Our plans actually started as a drawing using six 40 ft containers but the more we looked into the idea the more we understood the difficulty involved in cutting and joining them. With a lack of expert tradespeople to utilise on this small island, we realised that option wasn’t for us and the more we searched the more we realised that a tiny house would suit us just fine!

We have three kids so trying to fit a kitchen, lounge and enough sleeping for five of us seemed crazy and impossible… until our local builder said something that really stuck with us. “Stop thinking like a white man. You don’t need everything inside the house. You can use outside too.” And he was right.

We decided on an outdoor kitchen, living and dining area. And an outdoor shower too. It was just sleeping and a bathroom inside. This meant that we needed a huge roof over the container and outdoor living space to offer shade. We used natangura, a local woven leaf, for the roof and Hendry’s village in Epula all made it for us. So that was very special.

Our workers dug the foundations of the build with crowbars. I offered to hire machines but they wisely pointed out that doing it by hand meant they had a week's work and wages to feed their families. If I hired an excavator then an international company would see that profit.

When we purchased the land, it was a tropical oasis packed with papaya trees, banana trees, lime trees, palms, noni fruit and other amazing native plants. The sort of garden we’d spend thousands of dollars and many years trying to achieve at home. One of the biggest challenges was the reminding the builders to preserve as much of the garden as possible. Most gardeners in Vanuatu chop down anything that’s not useful, even trees. I used to go to the land every day and beg them not to go too crazy with their machetes.

As a free-standing bath and a stone kitchen went in, I could see our builders giggling. But before long they were taking photos of their work and inviting family to see it. They were so proud.

HOW DID THE RENO SCHOOL HELP WITH YOUR CONTAINER TRANSFORMATION?

I first signed up to the Reno School as we had just purchased our forever house, in Sydney. I planned to use my new skills to renovate that property first but the universe had other plans.

Reno School taught me to strive for practicality and wow factor equally. The highlight for me was the Facebook group. To be able to ask questions on paint colour or tile finishes or house plans and have heaps of really relevant advice within minutes saved my sanity more than once. My builders were self-taught local men and sometimes things didn’t go our way. But someone in the group always knew how to fix or finish whatever it was.

I even managed to use the Beacon Lighting discount from the supplier offers and packed the lights into my suitcase and took them with me.