Hi folks, long time, no post. I hope everyone had a fabulous holiday season. I've been working on my oldest house but was wondering if anyone knows exactly what time frame it fits in. I was thinking early 30's with the raffia fence? I neglected to take any before pix, so what you see already has new windows and doors, bought from Ted 4 yrs ago. One part of the raffia fence on the right was missing, so replaced that with some sponge hedge. I'm also putting sponge hedging along the back, chimney, and part of the front, to hide where the house has sunk and left a wide gap. I wasn't willing to open the bottom and reinforce. The snowman is all original, a bit munched in spots. By the bottom of the stairs is a hole? I'm going to cover it with a thin sponge tree with a holly berry but was wondering...would another figure have stood there? I've never seen a house with 2 figures before, but there is a hole like for a wire to go thru? I'll post when finished, hopefully later today. Thanks in advance for any advice or info. Best wishes...Colleen
PS: This house could double as a Halloween house for sure, kind of spooky and the right colors.

Hi Colleen. The hole is for a stick tree with a luffa sponge on it. As to the age it is somewhere in the early 30's. I have two of these. One with black coconut and the other (more common) with black sand. The base needs some of Pete's white coconut and I think he also can help you with the proper raffia fence. I LOVE that lumpy grumpy snowman. If I had seen what he has I might be about the same! LOL

Thanks Tom, for the info, I did go ahead and put a skinny sponge tree there at the bottom of the stairs. And the other sponge pieces worked well for hiding the big gap between the base and house. I sold it on ebay for $25, was hoping for more but that's the way it goes. The lady who bought it is going to do it up as a Halloween haunted house with bats and put a tiny witches hat on the snowman.