Tiny Fruit Stand

I hate to bring up a failed Tiny House (especially in the wake of the successful and popular Sectional Sofa Tiny House), but damned if this kit isn’t made by the same manufacturer as that weird Light Music Bar Tiny House I made last.

I bought both kits at the same time, not knowing that they both include flimsy paper, hard-to-interpret instructions that favor factory-style production, and wimpy wood pieces that you are told to paint in ridiculous colors such as 1 part purple to 30 parts brown. What the heck? Just, what the heck.

Lucky for me, this fruit stand was loads more interesting to figure out than the “light music bar,” and it turned out cuter, too. It was still not what I bargained for.

The building is an odd shape, as if it were meant to be on a city corner with an alley access, and like the light music bar there is no roof. But, there’s tiny fruit. So, I dug in.

(I took photos throughout construction so I could get views of stuff that would be obstructed later, so that’s why there are some continuity problems here.)

The Shopkeeper’s Territory

The central area seems to be where the shopkeeper would do business, although it’s a little cramped. Where’s a stool so she can sit during slow times?

I rearranged the veggies and fruit on that back rack to hide the molded shapes (what are those orange things: potatoes or mangos?) and to show off the ones I had the most trouble making and that look good (leeks and mini eggplants).

The beets: you cannot imagine how tricky it was to hold the tiny green paper with tweezers and cut along a stencil with sharp scissors. I call that a beet success.

This little section of business tools was odd, like everything here. The cash register was pre-molded (although I added that roll of receipt paper), but I had to make that pen out of heat-shrink tubing and stripped-down lighting wire. And that oil lamp (so essential to fruit stands?) was impossible to get lined up. What does it look like to you? (I reglued a missing hinge after I took that photo.)

In the South, we call that rolled up foil, “Reynolds Wrap,” because the Reynolds family are Richmonders and the kids all went to my school. I hear it’s actually called aluminum foil. I had to marry someone from Iowa to learn that.

Check out those kiwi slices I made! All the other pieces of fruit were a pain in the butt; creating the stems and leaves was much more tedious than I’d expected. I wanted to make each tray one at a time but instead had to make all the fruit at once, so I spent hours with these teeny balls rolling around on the trailer table, while I cussed and glued tiny stems on them. (First I had to make the stems by rolling thin strips of green paper into glued up twists and cutting them by the millimeter, then keeping track of them.) The kiwi, though, just had to be sliced. And it’s perfect.

The Customer’s Section

Here’s that mystery alleyway.

I bent the “wrought iron” for the decorative fence and built the gradual steps, and I’m still unsure what it’s all supposed to be. A secret entrance into Diagon Alley?

Ignore the mistake with the paper wall covering: those metal plant holders are brilliant. And I don’t know what is supposed to be advertised in that sign board, but it’ll stay dry in a downpour, for sure, and if you’re coming from Diagon Alley, you’ll be sure to see it.

I could not get the plastic wrap around the cherry tomatoes without static cling pulling them up out of the bin. Finally I had to just glue the whole thing like it’s been embalmed. The yellow squash were fun to make though: I cut the yellow bits off strings I’d used previously as the stamens for flowers, and then I painted the tips green. I think I pulled it off!

Here is the prettiest part, I think: the entrance. A crate of tomatoes, two baskets of apples, and a basket of watermelon. I’ll take several of them all, please. Just watch out for those green grapes that are hanging sideways—that’s what they look like in the instructions, I swear. They look a bit more like art, or barf.

These bags are adorable. Only with my camera lens can you see the little dotted lines where i folded the paper.

As always this Tiny House looks bigger in photos than it is, even when I hold it up to my head for comparison. My head is small, which doesn’t help.

I’m going to try to give this to the young woman and her husband who fill in for the park manager here in Brownsville, Texas, on the weekends. What would be very cool would be to give it to someone who runs one of the kajillion fruit and veggie stands around here. Maybe she knows such a fruit stand aficionado. I’ll report back!