Tag Archives: lifestyle

The Pipe Dream of Miniatures

Posted on October 22, 2011 by smallhousepress

For us, the appeal of the 20th St. Emporium commission was the idea of a shop with an apartment above, combining the bustle of public space with the private, domestic life upstairs. Miniatures are never simply about the objects or … Continue reading →

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With a Little Help from Our Friends

Posted on October 8, 2011 by smallhousepress

Being our first commercial building, the 20thSt. Emporium required a jump-start for our learning curve. The three-story structure would include a 7-stool soda fountain and mirrored backbar. To show it off we wanted gold-leaf lettering embellishing the reflective surface of … Continue reading →

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The Birth of the 20th Street Emporium

Posted on October 2, 2011 by smallhousepress

In 1980 we seem to have slowed a bit, producing two structures, compared to the 3-4 we completed in previous years.  I sometimes imagine there was a time warp, or black hole, in Seaview that allowed us to make houses … Continue reading →

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The Bear and the Secret Room

Posted on July 21, 2011 by smallhousepress

The third house we completed in 1979 we called the Bear River (there are a lot of rivers in our neck of the woods, but this is one we had an up-close and personal with–blackberrying one summer’s evening on a … Continue reading →

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Dirty Little Secrets

Posted on July 1, 2011 by smallhousepress

In 1979 the world tilted in our favor–Mork & Mindy came on the air, and Suzanne, a new customer, asked for an aged house. Not just a hint of age, but old. “Show all the bumps and wrinkles, I love … Continue reading →

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It’s All in the Numbers

Posted on May 19, 2011 by smallhousepress

Miniature house #17 was The Oysterville, the second of three houses we built in 1978. #18 would make that 18 houses in 5 years—or 3+ per year. I think this was the first $6000.00 house, which boiled down to each … Continue reading →

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Beach Walks & Saturday Night Live

Posted on May 11, 2011 by smallhousepress

In 1978, while we were building The Loomis Lake house, the world was watching Saturday Night Live (with Steve Martin’s original King Tut performance) and Saturday Night Fever. Gas cost .63 a gallon, and new homes went for $54,800.00. The … Continue reading →

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Further Dirt on Basements

Posted on April 28, 2011 by smallhousepress

First of all, pardon the italics below—some WordPress code gremlin has entered the blog which will take me some time to figure out… Backstepping a bit to last week’s post, titled For the Love of Basements, where I included not … Continue reading →

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How to Smoke a House

Posted on April 14, 2011 by smallhousepress

People were smoking a lot of things in the ‘70s, but we may have been the only ones smoking houses. And I’m not saying what might have been growing on our porch in those ancient times that might have caused … Continue reading →

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The Shasta Shoot

Posted on April 7, 2011 by smallhousepress

The South Bend miniature house has a two-part story, beginning with its initial construction in the fall of ’77, and its re-hab in 2005 for a new owner. In both cases it has found a happy home—first in California, and … Continue reading →

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