Holiday

More people request that I design Mid-Century Modern houses than any other kind of building. For the 2025 Great Halloween Spooktacular I designed a Halloween themed MCM creepy house. I recently decided I wanted to update it for Christmas. Besides a new Christmas party scene, I wanted to add a chimney for Santa!

If you are looking for your own scene for the inside of the house, you can search for ones using Google, FreePik, Pixabay, or Creative Fabrica, or you can make your own. I started with an empty room decorated for Christmas and used my paint program to add clipart presents, animals, people and other elements I found on Creative Fabrica and Pixabay.

I had plans for a different design this month, but my friend Lucy Foxworth emailed me while I was on vacation to ask if I would make a barn pattern for her June Challenge. Of course I didn’t realize that I would be so busy on my vacation that I wouldn’t find a minute to design, but I have been working on it since I got home. Like with my pattern for my Detached Garage, I wanted operable barn doors.

For this month’s design, I set myself a challenge: I needed to make a house that was easy enough that children could build it as I am teaching another class in December. At the same time, I wanted to design a building that could look quite different depending upon how you decorated it. I also wanted a building that made me think of Christmas. When mentioning all of this to a friend, she suggested I design a classic half-timber Tudor style building.