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Building A Popsicle Stick House [Updated Oct. 24]

Howdy folks,

 

Back when I lived with my parents I was working on a popsicle stick house, but I had to get rid of it since there was no space to put it in my new apartment. Now that I have a workbench in my shed, I can finally do some building projects I've been wanting to do for a while and a popsicle stick model house is one of them. Building and designing things from scratch is a hobby I guess, it helps me clear my head and allows me to be creative. Along the way I'm gonna take pictures and I figured I'd make a post here to have others enjoy my project, get feedback and comments, ideas, etc.

 

I'm building this to a 1:24 scale, kinda, I think. 1 inch = 2 feet. I use the metric system on a daily basis, better yet, I don't even have a ruler with inches on it. Anyways, 4cm is about a meter and building with wooden popsicle sticks is not that accurate anyway. A fully built wall is about 4.5 inches tall, so 9 ft, which I believe is a decent ceiling height. All doors are 3.5 inches tall, which translates to 7 ft. I intend on putting LED lighting in this house and powering them off of little solar panels I will stick to the roof. I guess it would also be fun to get a small LCD screen, say 2 inches diagonally and use that as a miniature TV that can actually display something. Just my imagination running wild here. I've got LEDs laying around somewhere, plenty of resistors, heat shrink and thin gauge wire. I know electronics basics, so should be able to get some lights working. As a base I'll be using a 3/4" (18mm) piece of particle board and I'm glueing it all together with a hot glue gun and a shitload of those glue cartridges.

 

As far as design goes, I used SketchUp to mock up a model of what I intend to make. This is subject to change though as the build progresses and ideas flow through my head. It's a modern build, I guess. My idea with this build was a house on a hill, where the back of the house is pretty much against the hill with a steep slope front to back. This picture resembles my idea somewhat.

Front.png

 

Ground floor consists of a 2 car garage and on the right from front to back: entry with stairs going up, hallway, utility room/storage room.

Lower.png

 

Upper floor has stairs coming up on the bottom right to a landing, gap in the wall to a kitchen/living area, two bedrooms and a bathroom up top. Above this floor is an attic space, which could be a home office or guest bedroom of sorts.

Upper.png

 

Comments and ideas are always welcome of course. I'll be updating the thread with pictures as the build progresses.

Folding@Home ~75k points per day | My Simple Air-cooled Machine Maintenance Guide | Dutch Talk | Building a Wooden Popsicle Stick House

Main rig: i7-3770 stock - ASUS P8Z77-M - 8GB DDR3 1600MHz - 2x Radeon HD6970 2GB - SilverStone GD05-B - Corsair RM650x

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- Update 1 -

 

The base has been cut from a piece of scrap wood I had lying around and I also made a jig to make my life easier when building the wall sections. Floorplan is transferred to the base plate with pencil marks. Walls are up for the ground floor, which ended up surprisingly straight. All walls get a double top plate for solidity and strength.

 

And yes, I do have plans to clean up my workbench and finish the electrical work. :)

 

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Closeup of the hallway looking through the front door.

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Questions, comments and ideas are welcome as always.

Folding@Home ~75k points per day | My Simple Air-cooled Machine Maintenance Guide | Dutch Talk | Building a Wooden Popsicle Stick House

Main rig: i7-3770 stock - ASUS P8Z77-M - 8GB DDR3 1600MHz - 2x Radeon HD6970 2GB - SilverStone GD05-B - Corsair RM650x

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- Update 2 - 

 

Interior walls going up, garage is first. Last picture is a view from the outside. Tidied up the electrical on the back wall, no more cables running all over.

 

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Folding@Home ~75k points per day | My Simple Air-cooled Machine Maintenance Guide | Dutch Talk | Building a Wooden Popsicle Stick House

Main rig: i7-3770 stock - ASUS P8Z77-M - 8GB DDR3 1600MHz - 2x Radeon HD6970 2GB - SilverStone GD05-B - Corsair RM650x

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As goofy as I find this, it's a charming goofy and I'm intrigued to see it finished. 

What do they know of England, who only England know?

"Well that's what I always said I wanted to be remembered for, for being honest. Nothing else is worth a damn"
 

 

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1 minute ago, SeriouslyMikey said:

As goofy as I find this, it's a charming goofy and I'm intrigued to see it finished. 

I'm not sure if goofy is the right word. It is different for a model, but it's actually somewhat realistic and I like the idea. If I had a thousand popsicle sticks I would do the same.

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1 minute ago, theninja35 said:

I'm not sure if goofy is the right word. It is different for a model, but it's actually somewhat realistic and I like the idea. If I had a thousand popsicle sticks I would do the same.

All I will say is: He's gotta be fat now after eating all those icepops :^)

What do they know of England, who only England know?

"Well that's what I always said I wanted to be remembered for, for being honest. Nothing else is worth a damn"
 

 

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This is so fucking cool imo. I'm really excited to see the finished product. Now I wanna build a model house, been wanting to for awhile but never had any ideas on what materials to use and stuff.

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This is just super cool to me, I love arts and crafts sort of stuff like this.

I really like the approach you took with the base of the house. Maybe you can get miniature painting :D

"We're all in this together, might as well be friends" Tom, Toonami.

 

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this is the dopest thing i've ever seen. nice job

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On 18/09/2016 at 0:01 AM, Xineas said:

working on a popsicle stick house

You know you have too much time on your hands when you start...

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Wow! That house looks way better built than mine!

Nice work! I'd love to see it finished!

"Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity"

- George Carlin (1937-2008)

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Thanks for the encouragement guys! :) The wooden sticks themselves are pretty cheap, the glue sticks are actually the biggest expense. 

 

22 hours ago, Minibois said:

This is just super cool to me, I love arts and crafts sort of stuff like this.

I really like the approach you took with the base of the house. Maybe you can get miniature painting :D

Painting is not my strong suit tbh, I might sand it and give it a coat of clear varnish or what not.

 

20 hours ago, Mug said:

You know you have too much time on your hands when you start...

Definitely true. Can't say my girlfriend likes the project, as it does take quite a bit of time.

Folding@Home ~75k points per day | My Simple Air-cooled Machine Maintenance Guide | Dutch Talk | Building a Wooden Popsicle Stick House

Main rig: i7-3770 stock - ASUS P8Z77-M - 8GB DDR3 1600MHz - 2x Radeon HD6970 2GB - SilverStone GD05-B - Corsair RM650x

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Not happy with the structural strength of them door and window headers :D

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23 hours ago, PCBjon said:

Not happy with the structural strength of them door and window headers :D

Haha can't disagree with that. :) These wannabe birch wood sticks can be quite a pain in the ass to work with. They're pretty easy to bend and none of them are perfectly straight to begin with. I may try to improve my headers by actually plying some sticks and letting it rest on the jack studs like they should, but then again, it's not like it's actually carrying a whole lot of weight. The glue holds it all together surprisingly well. :P 

Folding@Home ~75k points per day | My Simple Air-cooled Machine Maintenance Guide | Dutch Talk | Building a Wooden Popsicle Stick House

Main rig: i7-3770 stock - ASUS P8Z77-M - 8GB DDR3 1600MHz - 2x Radeon HD6970 2GB - SilverStone GD05-B - Corsair RM650x

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45 minutes ago, Xineas said:

Haha can't disagree with that. :) These wannabe birch wood sticks can be quite a pain in the ass to work with. They're pretty easy to bend and none of them are perfectly straight to begin with. I may try to improve my headers by actually plying some sticks and letting it rest on the jack studs like they should, but then again, it's not like it's actually carrying a whole lot of weight. The glue holds it all together surprisingly well. :P 

Looking forward to seeing the joist going in.

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- Update 3 -

 

Time for more inside wall cladding, but first some stairs have to go in. Putting them in after the fact would be a pain.

 

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Folding@Home ~75k points per day | My Simple Air-cooled Machine Maintenance Guide | Dutch Talk | Building a Wooden Popsicle Stick House

Main rig: i7-3770 stock - ASUS P8Z77-M - 8GB DDR3 1600MHz - 2x Radeon HD6970 2GB - SilverStone GD05-B - Corsair RM650x

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Dude this is honestly so cool, can't wait to see how it's going to look finished!

"Better to be bad at video games than mad at video games" - BadAtVideogamesMan

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- Update 4 - 

 

Thanks for the continued support guys, here's another update. Finishing up the stairs and cladding some more walls.

 

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Folding@Home ~75k points per day | My Simple Air-cooled Machine Maintenance Guide | Dutch Talk | Building a Wooden Popsicle Stick House

Main rig: i7-3770 stock - ASUS P8Z77-M - 8GB DDR3 1600MHz - 2x Radeon HD6970 2GB - SilverStone GD05-B - Corsair RM650x

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Seeing these kind of things really motivate me to try something like this, sadly I never follow through. 

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This sounds so mundane yet is so sick.

 

Stick to it op, i'm loving it

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- Update 5 -

 

Finishing up the wall cladding on the downstairs. The room in the far corner is a mechanical room sort of thing and will have no interior cladding. That will also be the room where all the wiring for the lighting will come together. In the front you'll see some cantilevered sticks sticking out to carry the bay that sticks out on the floor above.

 

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Folding@Home ~75k points per day | My Simple Air-cooled Machine Maintenance Guide | Dutch Talk | Building a Wooden Popsicle Stick House

Main rig: i7-3770 stock - ASUS P8Z77-M - 8GB DDR3 1600MHz - 2x Radeon HD6970 2GB - SilverStone GD05-B - Corsair RM650x

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1 minute ago, theninja35 said:

Lighting, you say?

Yup, LEDs throughout wired up with switches so you can light up individual rooms. I've been testing for a while but I have a general idea of what I want to do. 

Folding@Home ~75k points per day | My Simple Air-cooled Machine Maintenance Guide | Dutch Talk | Building a Wooden Popsicle Stick House

Main rig: i7-3770 stock - ASUS P8Z77-M - 8GB DDR3 1600MHz - 2x Radeon HD6970 2GB - SilverStone GD05-B - Corsair RM650x

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