Honey, I shrunk the house: N.S. crafter makes miniature versions of abandoned buildings

Tiny replicas preserve the past A self-taught Maritime artist creates tiny replicas of abandoned and heritage buildings.

John Eaton travels all around Nova Scotia looking for a particular kind of building that catches his eye. He’s not necessarily searching for major landmarks like Citadel Hill; rather, he’s scouring the province for forgotten and abandoned homes.

Eaton is a self-taught crafter from Middle Musquodoboit who breathes new life into those structures by recreating them as beautiful miniatures.

“I just really enjoy travelling around the province and looking for places to build and taking photographs and trying to preserve them in some small way,” Eaton said.

Eaton started making the miniatures near the tail-end of the COVID-19 pandemic, learning more about the process as he went along.

“I generally use 100 per cent recycled materials,” he said. “My main crafting material is cereal boxes. I build a lot of my models on rusty cans I find in the woods and in old junk piles.

“I like the idea of taking a piece of trash and turning it into a treasure.”

Eaton said he finds beauty in the older buildings scattered across Nova Scotia, noting how they can carry decades of history in their walls, floors, beams and roofs.

“The beauty of old buildings is in the difference in the architecture and the personal touches,” he said. “You can take a look at a 100-year-old building and see how it’s been loved and lived-in, how it’s grown, it’s expanded.

“Every building tells its own story.”

Eaton hopes people who look at his pieces are able to see the buildings the way he does.

“I’m not trying to recreate them exactly,” he said. “I’m trying to give the feel, the sense of history that comes through the decay and the obvious loved that had been there.”

Eaton’s work can be found on Instagram at drawn.by.john.

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