This Artist Will Make a Beautifully Detailed Model of Your House Out of Paper

In grade school, Abigail McMurray used to get in trouble for selling her origami creations to classmates. Nowadays, though, she isn’t being reprimanded for her delicate paper artworks—she can’t keep up with the demand for them.

Long inspired by the possibilities of paper, McMurray, who studied graphic design and sculpture in college, revisited the material in 2014 when she felt burnt out from her job in graphic design and online marketing. Around that time, she was gifted a computerized cutting machine and started selling flat-pack gift boxes and paper craft kits out of her Arlington, Mass., home. Soon after, she switched over to what is now the bulk of her work: Architecturally-inspired custom paper house portraits.

These paper houses, seemingly the ultimate housewarming gift, are sold through her business, yeiou paper objects. Each house is incredibly detailed, featuring elaborate trim work, window sashes, skinny balusters, and latticework. McMurray also makes silhouette-like maps of towns and cities. Every piece is uniquely beautiful—and she has a slew of custom orders to work through before she starts accepting more this May. We asked McMurray a few questions about her one-of-a-kind creations.

“My process starts on the computer. I create an illustration of the home by tracing a photo of it and adding details from supplemental photos if necessary. I turn that illustration into all of the parts/pieces/layers I’ll need to build the house out of paper, adding tabs to pieces I’ll need to glue down, marking where things will need to fold, and adjusting things to add depth. Then, I use my computerized cutting machine to cut and score the pieces on 100-pound weight cardstock. The more delicate pieces may need to be cut by hand or partly by hand, but once everything is cut and prepped, I glue it all together piece by piece, usually using model-making tweezers to hold things and a wooden skewer to dab on the glue. I attach it to the background paper and get it framed.”

“I’ve always appreciated the history and the variety in all the different styles of homes and buildings. Now that I spend so much of my time thinking about and working on houses, it’s basically dangerous for me to drive in an area of town I’m not familiar with because I want to look at all of the little details on all of the houses. For most of my work, I’m trying to replicate an actual house that someone has sent me a photo of, but I also collect quirky details from houses in my neighborhood or that I see on travels and use those elements to inspire other work.” 

“Most of my house portraits are 11 by 14 inches and around ¾ to 1 inch deep, but since everything is custom, I can adjust the proportions if that makes sense for the house. The base price is $500, and the price goes up from there depending on the complexity of the building.”

“I used to build websites, so I wanted to buy a domain that was mine to play around with. It’s like the vowels, ‘aeiou and sometimes y,’ but I flipped the ‘y’ to the front. Plus, I’m Abigail, so I’m the ‘a.’ When I started my company, I thought, ‘I have this name already and I think it’s a good fit.’ It’s sort of unexpected and not quite a word, just like when you look at one of my pieces you might ask, ‘Is this really paper?’ It works together quite well.”

“I love how accessible paper is. Even in our ‘paperless’ world you can always find a piece of paper to fold, sculpt, or decorate. I love creating something so unexpected out of something so common, and I’m grateful that my job also gives me the opportunity to teach workshops so that I can share that love. We humans lose an important part of ourselves if we’re not using our hands to make things, and by teaching paper crafting I hope to make something very accessible.”