Our inspiration and sources;
All the wood we use for our fairy houses is found washed up on riverbanks, the result of storms and floods. These rivers are in the beautiful Dales in the North East of England, an area of outstanding natural beauty.
Many types of local hardwoods are used, such as Oak, Silver Birch, Mountain Ash, Beech, Hawthorn and Bird Cherry, but many are unidentifiable by the time the river has taken it's toll.
We look for and collect all shapes and sizes of branches and trunks that are still in good condition and with inspiring shapes, with or without their bark.
The wood is dried before being cut to form the house; it's then carefully hollowed out with doors and windows, and a roof and stand are made to the appropriate style and size.
We also collect smaller branches and twigs, which are used for making roof structures, door and window frames.
There are no rules to the scale, size or design of any of our houses; they are born from the inspiration of the wood itself, and vary in height from about 200mm - 500mm.
Some houses are left with a natural finish, and others waxed or varnished dependant on the wood.
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All the roofs are made from solid wood; the angled roofs have twig and branch beams. Most have built-in lofts with illuminated stained glass windows, with wooden or clay window frames. |
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They all have various colours of fired clay roof tiles, some with chimneys and weather vanes. |
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The windows are cut to fit from 2mm thick glass. The glass is coloured with a special paint and oven fired to permanently set the colour. Larger windows are copper foiled. Wooden or fired clay frames are made to fit around each window.
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The windows are illuminated by internal LED's, showing dramatic colours in low light conditions, bringing each house into life at night. |
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All our fairy house doors are made from reclaimed oak. They all have coloured glass windows, illuminated from inside the house. They have either a shaped (heart, moon, star, etc.) window or coloured painted panel dependant on the size. |
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The doors are fitted with brass knobs (some with a key!), and may also have letter boxes and hinges. |
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Our houses are mounted on solid hardwood bases, which are cut and sanded to match each one.
These are also sourced from riverbank driftwood and locally felled trees, so can vary in type and size; some with and some without bark.
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Steps are cut into each base leading up to the doorway, which are modelled with fired clay to give each house a 'stone' pathway. |
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The bases are given a covering of 'grass' or 'gravel' in various colours, and may also have decorative stones or crystals outside the doorway. |
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The Power and Lights;
We don't use inefficient light bulbs or costly and wasteful batteries.
Each house uses less than 1 watt of power. We use very reliable, high intensity, low current and low temperature 12 volt LED's (Light Emitting Diodes).
A standard low voltage power socket is fitted into the rear of each base.
Each fairy house is supplied with a UK 240v AC / 12V DC mains adaptor, rated at 250mA.
The adaptors are CE approved and RoHS compliant.
Please note that all our fairy houses are intended for indoor use only.
