In September 2021 I took an online class through the Smithsonian called “Build a Tiny House”. I joined people from all over the US in building our own versions of the tiny house. I made three of them and I’ll show you the results in three different posts.
Thank you to my classmates and to our teacher, Marcie Wolf-Hubbard.
Here is my second house. I took two cardboard shipping boxes and stapled them one on top of the other. I cut dome of the flaps off and used them to make interior walls. As in the first house I used paint, printing, markers, and papers to create the interiors.
Here are some details.
One thing I wanted to do was add interior walls, but how to secure them to the structure so that they would hold? I decorated the walls first. Then I took a strip of paper (in some cases I used paper tape, which has adhesive on it already, like an envelope – or you could just use tape, but I didn’t want to use tape because it didn’t accept paint in a way I like. If I had had washi tape that would have worked well too).
I cut the strip the length I needed and folded it in half the long way. From the side it looks like an L. I put glue on the back of the L and pressed it into the angle between wall and floor.
I did this for each part of the wall I wanted to secure. Then I painted or collaged or whatever I wanted over it – or sometimes I left it with its original look. You can see it in the house setting in the following photo.
This method works well to join any two pieces you want, at any angle. I also used it for roofs, for instance.
You may have noticed that the house has some furniture. Cardboard chair and a table incorporating a spool. And there is an occupant. This person is a simple paper doll figure that I stood up on the balcony.
Claudia McGill and Her Art World 
What a brilliant idea! This is the sort of thing I loved doing as a child – I could do it for hours back then. What a pity most of us let go of these activities as we ‘grow up.’
Yes, exactly. When I saw the class listing I knew it was for me – I made this kind of thing too when I was young and I also had a couple of dollhouses that I furnished as well. I will be making more of these and I reccomend the activity. It’s very absorbing just to make the house and I haven’t even tried much furniture yet.
Great colors in this one. (K)
Thank you. I had more idea of what I was doing with this house and felt more free.
Oooh! This house is spectacular. It makes me think of houses in New Orleans’ French Quarter.
Thank you. It might be the balcony. I always wanted to live in a house with a balcony. And I did for a while, a very small one (balcony) but it was not as I had envisioned (it was more of a dust porch which is not meant for sitting and enjoying). So why not put that feature in in my tiny house!!??
Claudia, I want to read the poems and stories that go with these two homes. The decorations are totally intriguing!
Thank you. You know, I had not thought of writing to accompany these houses. Hmmm. It sounds like a great idea. Because I certainly feel these houses, like my childhood dollhouses and other tiny houses I have made in the past, have certainly got stories all right.
Such a colorful house, I’d live there.
Well, it seems to me you could easily replicate this environment almost anywhere. Paint the walls, etc, or maybe if that is not possible (since I know you live in an apartment) big sheets of canvas fabric? Or, I can envision taking cardboard from the innumerable packages (or get big pieces from the trash, I see them in dumpsters all over) and start sloshing paint and paper and…!!! ???
Our apartment walls are far from blank, but yeah if I had my own house I would for sure redecorate as such.
Excellent construction! 🙂 In today’s real estate market, you can make a pretty penny renting or selling. In Canada, it wouldn’t be a pretty penny – we got rid of pennies. This inflated the price of thoughts to a nickle.
Send me a glamorous nickel, then, and I can offer you a selection of real estate offerings! Because my construction company can make as many of these as a person could want. (Maybe you need a second home at the lake? Third home in the mountains? A pied a terre in a city? Let me know!)
“Bulk Real Estate R Us!” 😀
This is absolutely amazing, I love the details and the colors!!!
Thank you. They are really fun to make.
Seriously awesome houses – each one is an amazing unique piece of art!
Thank you. Who knew trash could provide so much fun? (I guess a lot of people knew that but it’s been awhile since I did this kind of thing and I had lost focus on that!)