Latest in 'tiny house' trend sees artist turn dumpster into home
Tiny houses are getting the attention of baby boomers wanting to downsize in retirement
There's nothing trashy about Gregory Kloehn's Brooklyn pied-a-terre: a live-in dumpster that sleeps two with ease, hosts impromptu barbecue parties and sports its own sundeck.
It's the California artist's tin-can contribution to the tiny-house movement that's prompting many Americans to ask if bigger really is better when it comes to having a roof over your head.
"On the street, when it's all closed up, if you don't know about it, you think it's a garbage can," said Kloehn, 42.
"They don't know I'm in here sleeping. Even with the barbecue going outside, chicken wings grilling, people just walk by. They don't see it as a home."
Kloehn had already turned six-metre shipping containers into housing units when he thought up the idea of doing likewise with the steel garbage receptacle often known as a skip.
You enter Kloehn's dark-green crash pad - his home back in Oakland is rather more conventional - through a Dutch door with an affixed minibar that is well-stocked with whiskey and vodka.
To the right is the galley-style kitchen with smooth granite countertop, sink, single-burner gas stove, concealed icebox and a hood fashioned out of an old cooking wok.