A Cape Breton family is constructing a new cottage on the Mira River, but it’s not your average summer getaway.

Hugh Campbell and his wife Ann are using empty shipping containers to build their new home in Round Island, N.S.

“About half the square footage is container and the other half is wooden floors,” says Hugh. “What we want to do is use as much local materials as possible.”

The couple’s daughter-in-law is an architect in Montreal and designed the bungalow. Ann admits the idea of using shipping containers came as a bit of a surprise.

“When it came about first, I couldn’t believe it,” she says. “I thought, ‘that’s going to be tacky.’”

But Ann and her husband have come to love the idea and say no one else will have a cabin like theirs.

“Yeah, it is unique, but that’s a good thing, isn’t it? We’re not copying anyone. It’s original,” she says.

In addition to being unique, Hugh says the containers were chosen because they are solid and will stand up to Mother Nature.

“Here we are not very far from the shore. Who knows what a big winter storm will bring? This will weather anything. They are on ships and they come across the ocean, so they must be made for the sea.”

The containers used in the project were originally shipped from China but were too expensive to be sent back, so they were sold in Halifax.

A total of seven containers are being used in the project; six of the containers are 20 feet long while the seventh is 40 feet long. The containers cost between $2,000 and $4,000 each.

Hugh says the project has been attracting a lot of attention along the Mira River.

“We had lobster fishermen just off the coast hollering ‘what’s going on?’ But I think now everyone from Port Morien to Mira Gut knows what’s going on in one way, shape or form.”

“Sometimes when somebody would say to us, ‘what are you doing?’ I’d say ‘building a cottage out of containers.’ They would look at us as if we were crazy, and we might be, but it’s going to be great,” says Ann.

The Campbells expect to finish the project by next June.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Kyle Moore