Tiny Custom House Mesa, Arizona
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ModelsDesign + PricingADU & CasitasRental CalculatorProjectsHow It Works Schedule a Design Call Call (480) 789-1844
A completed Tiny Custom House shipping container home with steel siding and a covered entry
As seen on FOX 10 Phoenix

Design a container home built around your land, lifestyle, and budget.

We build shipping container homes and traditional casitas in Mesa, Arizona — engineered for the desert, permitted for real living, and priced before you ever sign anything.

Design My Home View Models
$70kSingle container, from
$120kTwo container, from
320–1,000Square feet
5+ yrsBuilding in Arizona
Built, not brokeredWe fabricate in our own Mesa shop
12–20 week buildsFrom signed design to delivery
Statewide deliveryPhoenix metro, Tucson and rim country
Permit guidance includedEngineered plans for your jurisdiction
Financing availableRV, personal and construction lenders

Our models

Start from a proven plan, then make it yours.

Every model below is a real floor plan we build. Prices are honest starting points for the finished home — not a teaser number that doubles at contract.

Compare all models Design from scratch

Design + pricing tool

See your price before you talk to anybody.

Pick your containers, square footage, bedrooms, baths and upgrades. The estimate updates as you go, and it separates the build price from site work, permits and delivery so nothing hides.

Open the full designer
Dimensioned isometric layout of a 40 foot container home showing kitchen, bath, living area and bedroom
Finished Tiny Custom House container ADU in an Arizona backyard behind an existing house, with turf, pavers and a privacy screen

Step two

Every lot is different. We find out before you commit.

A Site Discovery is the paid engineering step where we confirm your parcel can actually take the home you designed: zoning and setbacks, utility locations, access for the truck and crane, soil and foundation requirements, and the real permitting path in your jurisdiction.

  • Zoning, setback and ADU eligibility review for your address
  • Utility tie-in locations and estimated connection costs
  • Truck and crane access assessment
  • Foundation recommendation and site prep scope
  • A written scope and firm build price you can hold us to
How Site Discovery works

Rental income

What could this thing actually earn?

Our single-wide container homes currently rent for $1,200 a month and our doubles for $2,000. On nightly rental the numbers change entirely. Run yours.

Open the full rental calculator

How it works

Six steps from an idea to a home on your land.

Design

Use the online designer or sit down with us. You leave with a configuration and a real price range.

Site Discovery

We verify zoning, utilities, access and foundation requirements for your specific parcel.

Final scope

Engineering and stamped plans. Your price stops being an estimate and becomes a contract.

Permit & site prep

We submit for permits and coordinate the foundation, grading and utility trenching.

Build

Your home is fabricated and finished in our Mesa shop. You get photo updates as it goes.

Delivery & install

Transport, crane set, tie-down, utility connection and final inspection. Then you get the keys.

See the full process and timeline

Why Tiny Custom House

Built for Arizona, by people who live here.

Engineered for 115° summers

Closed-cell spray foam, thermal breaks and right-sized mini-splits. A container in the Arizona sun is a hard engineering problem, and we solved it years ago.

Containers or conventional

If your HOA will not take a container or you want the casita to match the main house, we build stick-frame with stucco and tile roof instead. Same crew, same standards.

Prices published, not hidden

Every model shows a starting price and every upgrade shows what it adds. You will know roughly what your home costs before you give us your phone number.

Off-grid capable

Solar, battery storage, water tanks, composting toilets and generator transfer switches. We have put homes on land with no power line in sight.

We handle the paperwork

Engineered and stamped plans, permit submittal, inspections and final sign-off. We have worked through Mesa, Maricopa County and rural jurisdictions.

Rental-ready by design

We build a lot of these as income units. Durable finishes, guest-proof fixtures and layouts that photograph well and turn over fast.

Real builds, real photos

Every picture on this site is a home we built.

No catalog renderings pretending to be finished homes. Exteriors, kitchens, interiors and delivery days from Mesa and across Arizona.

Blue container home with a glass slider opening onto a turf patio with lounge chairs and planters Turf patio and a full slider Navy shaker kitchen inside a container home with butcher block counters Navy shaker kitchen Full bathroom with a marble-look tiled shower inside a container home Marble-look wet bath Open living area with the glass slider open onto the patio Slider onto the patio White container home with two full-height glass sliders Full-height glass Finished 40 foot silver container home set on a level green lot with a covered entry awning 40 ft, delivered and set
Open the media gallery — 47 photos and clips
Chris Conover, founder of Tiny Custom House, standing in the finished kitchen of a container home

Who you talk to

You get the builder, not a call center.

Tiny Custom House is a Mesa, Arizona shop run by Chris Conover. When you book a consultation you talk to the person who will price your build, pull the permits and hand you the keys — not a salesperson reading from a script.

Five-plus years of container homes, casitas and remodels across the Valley and rural Arizona, including off-grid sites with no power line in sight.

Schedule a free phone consultation (480) 789-1844

As seen on the news

FOX 10 walked through one of our homes.

Tom and Rudy from FOX 10 Phoenix toured a fully furnished 40-foot container home at the Maricopa County Home & Garden Show at WestWorld in Scottsdale.

FOX 10 Phoenix FOX 10 Phoenix reporter touring a Tiny Custom House container home at the Home and Garden Show
“Highly recommend this location. I have never stayed in one of these container homes before and it was fantastic. Very clean lines in the design of the facility, super clean and super private. The stars were the best I have ever seen them and it was super quiet.”
AaronMesa, AZ — Airbnb guest review, June 2023
“This stay was the definition of peace and serenity. This adorable, immaculate home was perfect — luxury finishes with all the amenities. The beautiful marble shower was exhilarating after a full day of hiking. This will definitely be an annual retreat for us.”
CindyMarysville, WA — Airbnb guest review, August 2023
“Beautiful tiny home. I want one of my own now. Great location. Easy check in. Great communication despite the poor cellular service on my end. Thanks!”
BradlyScottsdale, AZ — Airbnb guest review, September 2023
See finished projects

Questions

The things everybody asks first.

Usually, yes. A stick-built ADU in the Phoenix metro runs roughly $180 to $340 per square foot, so a 320 square foot casita lands around $80,000 and a 700 square foot casita around $175,000. Our single-container home starts at $70,000 for 320 finished square feet. The gap widens on smaller units and narrows as square footage grows, which is exactly why we build both.
Our prices are turn-key build prices for the home itself. They exclude land, foundation and site prep, permits and impact fees, utility connections, delivery and crane set, and taxes. Budget roughly $8,500 for site prep on the first container, $6,500 for permits and fees in the Mesa area, and $2,500 to $4,200 for delivery and crane depending on distance and container count. The designer breaks all of this out for you.
In most jurisdictions, yes. We build to the International Residential Code with engineered, stamped plans, and container construction is permitted across Maricopa County and most Arizona municipalities. Zoning is the real variable, not the building code, and that is what Site Discovery is for. We cannot guarantee an approval in any jurisdiction, but we can tell you what you are walking into before you spend money.
Twelve to twenty weeks in the shop for most configurations, once plans are final and permits are moving. Stacked two-story and three-container builds run longer. Permitting timelines vary by jurisdiction and are outside our control, though we have seen 60 to 90 days as typical in the Phoenix metro.
Yes. Our standard off-grid package is a 4 kW array with 10 kWh of battery storage, which comfortably runs lights, outlets, refrigeration and one mini-split. For full-time off-grid living we size up to 6 to 7 kW with 20 kWh or more. Add water storage with a pressure system, a composting toilet, and a generator transfer switch and you do not need a utility connection at all.
We do not lend directly, but we work with RV, personal and construction lenders who fund container homes and ADUs regularly. Many of our buyers also use a HELOC on the primary residence, which is often the cheapest money available for a backyard ADU. We will point you at the options that fit your situation on the design call.
We deliver throughout Arizona routinely and regionally on request. Delivery runs about $500 base plus $5 per mile from our Mesa yard, plus roughly $2,000 per container for the crane set. Access matters more than distance — we need room for a truck and a crane, and Site Discovery confirms that before you commit.

Let's find out what your build actually costs.

A free 30-minute phone consultation. We will talk through your lot, your use case and your budget, and you will get a straight answer about whether this works.

Schedule a Free Consultation Call (480) 789-1844
Start Design Schedule Call