Building Putz Houses

Building Your Own Putz Houses

This page will be a repository of information for those who want to build their own putz houses. At the moment, the greatest and most organized single resource for potential putz-house builders is the "Howards's How-To" page on Howard Lamey's site (listed below). But as more and more folks get into the hobby - as often as not inspired by Howard's creations and plans - more online resources are becoming available. In addition, we will eventually be reporting on some of our own experiences here. So check back.

In the meantime, you will find the following resources helpful.

  • Howard's How-To's - The Internet's largest collection of free downloadable plans, graphics, and instructions for making putz houses and related projects.


  • Building Houses From Scratch - An article on Papa Ted Place that lists tips and tricks for building your own putz house. It's not entirely annotated, but Tom Hull and Howard Lamey seem to be the main contributors.


  • Building Glittered Putz Houses - An annotated index of putz house construction resources on CardboardChristmas.com.


  • Tips, Tools, and Techniques - This forum on the CardboardChristmas.com site includes a lot of posts from various contributors to help fellow hobbyists with their putz restoration and construction.


  • Tribute to Tinplate - In addition to the mica or coconut ("silken floss") putz houses we're used to seeing under the tree, several companies made shiny cardboard buildings that were meant to look right with all-season tinplate railraods featuring Lionel, Ives, Marx, or American Flyer trains. "Papa" Ted called these "lackies," because they were heavily lacquered to give a faux metallic finish. The "Tribute to Tinplate" page lists several projects you can make from cardboard to get the same effect. And if you're a tinplate train collector, you can use them year-round.


  • What is a Glitterhouse? - Big Indoor Trains' introduction to putz houses, with a list of articles on building putz houses and related items. Many of the articles on Howard's How-To's started on this page then moved to LittleGlitterHouses.com when that site got started. So you'll see some redundancy.


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