My first houses

[prariegurl]

My first dollhouse was a tin litho house with gobs of wonderful pastic furniture. Mom was a thrower-outer, so I no longer have it, or anything else from my childhood except a coin bank.

My second dollhouse was also the first I had made. My parents owned a carpet store, and when I was 8 I got it in my head that I wanted a sod house. Perhaps I was reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. So I took a brown carpet sample home, cut it into bricks with a scissors, and glued the bricks with Elmer's to make the house. Can't recall what I used for a roof--probably cardboard. I wish my mom had taken a picture. Then again, perhaps I don't. when I think of it, it seemes so cute. but in reality it was probably hideous!

Jeri

[havanaholly]

Oh, Jeri, what a great idea! Only now you could make the shell from heavy cardstock, foamboard or gatorboard and glue the carpet "sods" to the exterior and use Deb's trick with colored fake fur to make the roof.

Mom was a thrower-outer, so I no longer have it, or anything else from my childhood

Uh-huh... Been there, too.

[Shy Spirit]

I think that was a wonderful idea to use the carpet sample for a sod house - and you were only EIGHT? Wow! :yikes:

I like Havanholly's suggestion - why don't you make another one?

[prariegurl]

Yes, I am pretty sure I was eight, because I remember my third grade teacher really liked it. It was a project for a reading program at school. We were all supposed to make something that tied into a book we had read, and I decided on making a sod house, so I guess I was inspired by the little house books, which I loved as a child.

If I made another soddy, I probably wouldn't use carpet. Perhaps I would make some sort of clay bricks instead. Hmmm, I better order that book of Solomon Butcher photos....

[Shy Spirit]

Excuse my ignorance - who's Solomon Butcher? :yikes:

[prariegurl]

He is a photographer who traveled all over Nebraska, photographing familes and their soddies. Due to the limitations of photography at the time, there are very few interior shots. Doesn't matter all that much, since most familes would drag all of their prized possessions outdoors, hitch up the team to the wagon, and be proudly photographed with all their worldly goods--in front of their dirt home! This is fortunate, because event hough we cannot see the interiors, we can see what the families owned. Some of them had some very nice things indeed! Although many homesteader were poor, more affluent homesteaders had to make do with sod homes as well due to lack of building materials. Frame houses did not become common until after the railroads were established and lumber could be easily and affordably shipped to treeless areas.

Here are a few of Mr. Butcher's photos:

http://www.nebraskahistory.org/lib-arch/re...tcher/index.htm

Jeri

[Shy Spirit]

Those are fascinating photos - and the way they can bring out the details from the glass plates is so interesting. Thanks, Jeri. You obviously have a keen interest in these sod homes, you really should make another miniature one - that is, if you have time! :yikes:

[havanaholly]

Of course I remember seeing that "Cow on the Roof" picture! I wonder if our own Claude/ Clyde (senior moment/ brain hiccup) Butcher, who takes such marvelous pictures of "wild Florida", is a descendant of Solomon's?

[Corwin]

I saw one in modern day (sort of) before. it was a litle crumbly, but hey it was old, i havn't been to that farm for years, i think it was on the edge of the property the farm house was kinda in the midle, i think i was somthig like six when i saw it in vegraville, ah soo long ago...