Andrew McMullin is passionate about sleeping outdoors.

That's why the bed in his new home will be on tracks, so it can roll out onto his deck, allowing him to sleep al fresco 365 days a year.

"(Bedrooms) are one of the things I don't like about houses. The idea of being able to sleep and breathe and wake up in the cold - it gives me the sense that I'm still outside and close to nature."

A roll-out bed is only one of the unusual features of the home that McMullin, 27, is building in Nederland.

For starters, it will be made of two recycled steel shipping containers. A crane will set the two of them in a "V" shape on an acre of land that, at 9,200 feet, offers panoramic views of Boulder Canyon and Barker Reservoir.

The shipping containers will be the home's bedrooms and kitchen. The space between the two containers will be the living room, topped by a loft bedroom.

The home will be only 1,500 square feet.

"I feel guilty just building a house," says McMullin, who, like the abode he's planning, has some quirks.

The modern-day Jeremiah Johnson once bicycled from San Francisco to the tip of South America, camping most of the way.

Although he has a degree in creative writing from the University of California at Davis, he remodels homes for a living.

But he hates drywall. It's resource- and labor-intensive. Living lightly on the land is a principle McMullin holds dear.

So is recycling. Using some of the world's surplus of old shipping containers that are no longer seaworthy but are still incredibly strong fits McMullin's world view.

He hired Studio H:T Architects of Boulder to help him design his environmentally conscious home. Studio H:T founders Brad Tomacek and Christopher Herr liked McMullin's outside-the-box ideas and lifestyle.

"The architects actually brought me the idea: Wouldn't it be cool if the bed could roll outside?" said McMullin.

Using small blocks of wood scaled to the two 8-by-40-foot containers, the trio went to the site and figured out how to orient the house.

In addition to a solar electric system, the home will sit on a 4-inch-thick vented concrete slab that will absorb the sun's rays and heat the home through natural convection. University of Colorado engineering students designed the experimental home.

The home will have backup heat. Tubes will be installed in the slab to carry hot water through the flooring, and electric baseboard heating will be built in each room so the home meets code.

Finally, the home will have a big wood- burning stove in the living room, fueled by thinned trees and dead wood from the area.

McMullin hopes to pour the foundation in March. He's checked out the used steel shipping containers at Brekke Storage in Longmont, which generally carries an inventory of about 100 new and used containers from $2,100 to $5,700.

Before they started, McMullin hired a truck driver to ensure that the containers would make it up the 150-yard dirt road to his land. "He said it would be tight, but he could do it."

Inside, the look will be exposed steel and industrial, in keeping with McMullin's principle of honoring the integrity of the materials.

If it looks cold, McMullin says, he may ask artist friends to create some bold wall hangings on giant sheets of plywood.

He's flexible on everything except that indoor-outdoor bed.

mwinte@aol.com

Nederland container home

* Size: 1,500 square feet

* Main material: two used 8-by-40- foot shipping containers made of 1/8-inch corrugated steel with reinforced corners and teak flooring

* Insulation: 5 1/2-inch-thick styrofoam panels on exterior of containers, R-23 value

* Heating: roof-mounted solar voltaic system; passive solar concrete pad with natural convection heating; wood stove on Lazy Susan; electric baseboards for backup

* Custom features: upstairs bed that rolls onto deck for open-air sleeping, 8-foot-high glass door, rain screen

* Start date: March 2009

* Completion: August 2009, estimated

* Cost: $200,000, excluding land and owner's sweat equity

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