Miniature Masterpiece
HOUSE: Craftsman, 1905-1930
DOG: Gumpy
If a cobbler’s children have no shoes, then you might expect a doghouse builder’s dog to have nothing more than a corner of the workshop floor to call his own. Luckily for Gumpy, that wasn’t true.
Carpenter Mark Jolliffe, who with his brother, Dale, designed and built the canine constructions featured in the article 5 Doghouses Crafted in Classic American Architecture, made his 8-year-old Shetland sheepdog companion a storybook Arts and Crafts bungalow.
Sheepdog Siding
To make the shingles for the siding, the Jolliffes ripped cedar shims into random widths, tossed them in a barrel, and mixed them up before attaching each one to the doghouse.
Prepping for Paint
Gumpy’s house is trimmed with white-painted pine. Here, the arched entryway gets a final sanding in preparation for the first of three coats of paint.
It’s All in the Details
Mark Jolliffe uses a pneumatic brad nailer to attach the underside of the porch roof.
Post Perfection
The porch posts are toenailed through the base, then all nail holes are filled in with auto-body putty.
Finishing Touches
Gumpy’s uncle, Dale Jolliffe, glues a cap of overlapping shingles to the roof ridge to keep it watertight.
Lucky Dog
The job-site supervisor, Gumpy, oversees construction from his post on the workshop floor.
At Home in Nature
The Craftsman aesthetic—natural materials, handcrafted details, and simple lines—shows in the cedar-shingle siding, the tapered porch posts atop stout piers, and the exposed rafter tails. The roof, with its wide shed dormer and gentle crook where it meets the porch, is another hallmark of the style. Jolliffe spared no effort for his trusty sidekick, painstakingly hand-painting the porch, windows, and trim with an artist’s brush, and hand-gluing more than 275 cedar shakes to the roof.
