I Love Little Houses

And anyone who comes to my "full-size" house would agree. I've been drawn to little houses for as long as I can remember.

The house that started it all was this little charmer bought decades ago at The Hoot, a unique independent gift shop in Willimantic. It's tin or thin metal and was made to be a Christmas ornament with a twirly bow and hanging loop.  A little metal fringed Christmas tree from the same manufacturer came home that day, too, and they have sat together in various places ever since.

Some time later, I happened across an ad in the back of a country magazine for a set of little buildings with a "timeworn" finish. So I sent off a check (yes,we did that back then) to someplace in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania and a little village appeared in the mail. The church, school, town hall, barn, and mill AND the metal house moved from the mantel to a bookcase, from a table top to a bathroom counter - wherever I wanted a touch of country in my house. 

Timeworn town

When I was still in the "primitive" mode I found this set of "Noel" houses at a craft show. I loved that they could be used for Christmas with the Noel on one side and then simply turned around for the other 44 weeks of the year. The picture isn't great and (unfortunately) I can't take another because these are undergoing a "refresh" (note replaced chimney on N) and no longer look like this. (A story for another time.)

My little house "mild interest" ramped up dramatically when I was introduced to Charlotte's Little Houses at the annual "Pink House" craft show in Woodstock, CT in the mid-1990's. Charlotte was a co-worker of my friend, JoAnn, and sold her hand-painted houses at craft fairs and to friends at work, etc. Charlotte's husband made the houses and painted the base coat of solid color and then Charlotte did all the detail painting. And what beautiful detail it was! For a while, she even did custom houses from customer photographs but I didn't have one of those done (regretfully). Charlotte no longer paints houses, so it is what it is. 

Christmas houses in the hallway

And for the details . . . these houses are no larger than 3" wide at the base, and the tallest, including the chimney is 4" tall. The painting is exquisitely done and all sides of the houses are painted. I have mostly winter houses  . . . plus a pharmacy and museum (no library though.)

The Halloween houses are pretty interesting as you can see.  I've shown both sides  -  the witches are stirring up some potion or other while the trick or treaters and the ghost coming out of the back window are a great touch. And then there's the outhouse . . .

Several of the summer houses . . .

I bought the three houses above as a set and keep them on a ledge in the powder room along with the two weather vane houses. Love the gray Cape Cod with the whale on the roof and the angel atop the yellow colonial. So New England . . .

The top set of houses are a fairly recent primitive style addition, while the apothecary, school and library mix well with my original timeworn set. And the prize in my collection is the painted green house, made by my #2 son when he was in nursery school. He probably has absolutely no recollection of it.

A grouping of larger Christmas themed houses traditionally sits on the windowsill in the kitchen accented with bottle brush trees and some Williraye skiers and sledders. These called to me at one time, but they probably have seen their last season here.

But onward . . .  a row of buildings from The Cat's Meow sits on the trim above the "library" powder room window. 

Three are replicas of Manchester, VT sites - The Equinox Hotel, Johnny Appleseed's Bookstore, and The Northshire Bookstore - while the other buildings represent The Globe Corner Bookstore (said to be the oldest bookstore in America in Cambridge, MA but now closed) and the Williamsburg, VA landmark Pasteur & Galt Apothecary. A wonderful replica of The Slater Library in Jewett City completes the lineup.

These days I don't search out little houses - I have more than enough. But . . . I have been reading about handmade cardboard Putz houses  . . . so the next additions to my collection just may be made by me.

Cheers!