the House that Mouse built

As promised in my last post, I dug out my copy of House By Mouse, written by George Mendoza and illustrated by Doris Smith. Reading through it again, I was tickled to see which houses I coveted when I was little — as indicate by a pencil caption "my house" on each one I liked. Interestingly enough, my tastes haven't changed at all. I still want to live in Mouse's House:

It looks as cosy and well-designed now as it did when it was drawn, doesn't it? (click through to the Flickr page to see it larger)

Mole's house looks looks like a cosy home, too.

See how Rabbit's house compares to Lettuce's burrow (which is what reminded me to dig this book out in the first place, natch):

Even as a kid I thought Pig's big house was tacky, but Frog's house looks to me like a very classy cocktail bar — but I seem to remember it did when I was a kid, too. Just the glamourous kind of place I wanted to be grown up enough to lounge in. Now that I'm grown up enough, I don't know of any cocktail bar that looks like this in real life:

More's the pity; it looks like the perfect place to sip Mai Tais.

See more pics on Flickr