Little Houses


I've been thinking lately of my need for a Wendy House (as in Peter Pan).  

Need may be too strong a word but I certainly passionately desire one.




I was reading an article about writers and their sheds recently.  Dylan Thomas had one, as did Virginia Woolf (that's where she spent her final afternoon).

And George Bernard Shaw had one he designed to rotate in order to follow the sun.

The lovely re-nest blog has some nice images of sheds here, including this one which belonged to Roald Dahl.


Very covetable.

And back in the day,  at a writers' colony at Emma Lake in Saskatchewan, I had all to myself a little cottage much like this one, (the original cottage built by Gus Kenderdine at the Murray Point Arts Camp in 1936).

File:KenderdineCabin.jpg

It was maybe a smidge smaller, with just room for my bed, a little wood stove and a table for my laptop.   Perfection.

But my ideal "little house" would have to be the Maud Lewis cottage, which I first saw reconstructed in a Nova Scotian shopping mall. 


It now has a permanent home in the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.  See pictures of the highly decorated interior here.  

There is a wonderful picture book for children on the life and art of Maud Lewis called Capturing Joy by Joan Ellen Bogart with illustrations by Mark Lang.  You can take a peek here.

I do have a little cottage that I hope to convert into a writer's shed one fine day.  It is also pretty perfect in its own way - despite the current lack of a floor.  One day.... 





UPDATE:
Would rather have this exorbitantly-priced children's playhouse than an actual house


tudor playhouse £25,000 Tudor Playhouse Invites Children

Comments

Kerry said…
This reminded me of that
http://www.readersheds.co.uk/
Sara O'Leary said…
Oh, I like that site, Kerry.
But this I love:
http://elitechoice.org/2007/11/23/25000-tudor-playhouse-invites-children/
Steph said…
love this! didn't know about those writers' sheds.
patricia said…
Love this post!

I do love my little library, but there is certainly something magical about having a wee little writing cottage. We've got one of those old garden sheds out back, but it's full of well, gardening stuff, and besides, I'd probably have to serious battle the raccoons who flop there from time to time.

Oh, and I discovered and fell in love with the art of Maud Lewis when I went out to Halifax in 2008 for the Summer Reading Club launch. What an experience, seeing Maud's cottage, and actually walking around inside it!

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