Well-Housed on Wellington Street Yet Again

Each Christmas season, I find myself in a dollar store looking at little Christmas-village buildings and wondering if they would make good HO-scale structures. I like to take the little plastic orphans and make them at home on the Hanley Spur, as a one-afternoon project to challenge my modest modelling skills! I've done it previously in 2021 and 2022. I found these three at Dollar Tree. I bought two green three-storey houses and one red schoolhouse/firehouse. Each was adorned with a wreath, and lightly 'weathered' with a spray of black paint. The Before photos:

I discovered too late that the backs can pop off each building. They're not glued on. Each had a hook on the roof where the hanging twine was attached.

Making liberal use of my scrap box, I conservatively dressed this one with some printed brick paper. As background flats, the idea is not to add too much detail to draw one's eye away from the foreground. But I just couldn't help myself. I left the windows blank, then added printed paper windows from the inside, as well as various roof and wall details.

Perhaps it's a small workshop or factory. I got caught up in the build, only remembering to take an in-progress photo, well, after. Here's the After photo:

The first green house struck me as having one too many storeys. I decided to cover the middle-storey windows with an awning. I also added a lean-to from a Durango engine house train-show find. Doors and windows are printed paper:

I removed the Walthers shingle paper from a previous structure I'd built. It's now fully depreciated! Paint job has weathered some storms, but remember, it's going in the background!

I test-fitted the first green house on the layout and realized that it automatically needed a street, lawn, driveway and/or sidewalk in front of it. None of which I'd likely have near the layout room walls. So I decided to model the rear of a house. Metal roof (printed paper again) applied. This is the last we'd see of this green side:

I painted the rear wall a nondescript brown with craft paint, adding paper windows and a downspout, window lintels and a stoop:

That was an enjoyable afternoon, and I think I succeeded in producing something that will be perfectly at home receding into the backdrop! It was time to take all three down to the layout room and play around with placing them. 

I did NOT have a lot of real estate available at the walls that was not already taken by structural flats or scenery. I wondered...to background flats always have to be at the rear of the layout? Could they be ON the layout?

Plunked opposite Anglin's office (above) and viewed aerially (below). Would any viewer ask, "Hey, why are your houses only six feet deep?" Maybe. Some of the houses in the Swamp Ward ARE pretty small.

Plunked along Wellington Street, next to Bajus' Brewery:

Nestled between Railway Street industries, innocuously:

Near Frontenac Floor & Wall Tile. Just no clearance because joint section of CN/CP track is behind that fence!

I think they will continue to be motile around the layout. They might also figure in to layout-level iPhone photography to provide background depth. In front of the CN/CP interchange yard:

Let's go, retro! 

Beside Dyeco (above) and Woolen Mill (below):

Near Anglin's:

I wonder what dollar deals I will find at the end of 2025?