How to make a paper model of your house

A paper model of a house is a set of flat pieces, the base, the walls and the roof planes, printed at scale on card, then scored, cut, folded and glued. You can draw the pieces yourself from measurements, or start from a kit made from public survey data.

Updated October 14, 2026.

What you need

• Cover card of 65 to 80 lb (176 to 216 g/m²); plain paper works for a first try
• A craft knife with fresh blades, a steel ruler and a cutting mat
• An empty ballpoint pen or a bone folder for scoring
• White glue (PVA) or a glue stick, and a toothpick to spread it
• Tweezers for the small scales

Choose a scale

The scale decides how large the model is and how many sheets it takes. For a house 50 ft (15 m) long:

• 1:50: about 30 cm long; twice as large as 1:100 and easier to fold; three to six Tabloid or A3 sheets (six to ten Letter).
• 1:100: about 15 cm long; 1 cm on paper is 1 m; two or three Letter sheets.
• 1:200: about 7.5 cm long; half the size of 1:100, on one sheet; small pieces to fold.
• 1:500: about 3 cm long; a miniature on one sheet, for a site or street model; the pieces are tiny, tweezers help.
• 1/4″ = 1′ (1:48): about 12½ in long; the architect’s house scale; three to six Tabloid sheets (six to ten Letter).
• 1/8″ = 1′ (1:96): about 6¼ in long; two or three Letter sheets.
• 1/16″ = 1′ (1:192): about 3⅛ in long; one sheet; small pieces to fold.
• 1″ = 40′ (1:480): about 1¼ in long; the site-plan scale, about 1:500: a miniature on one sheet; the pieces are tiny, tweezers help.

1:100 and 1/8″ = 1′ make a desk-sized model on letter paper; 1:50 and 1/4″ = 1′ are easier to fold and show more; 1:500 and 1″ = 40′ suit a model of a whole street or site.

Print at actual size

Print every page at 100% (“Actual size”, not “Fit to page”), then measure a known length on the sheet. A kit from LotLens Model has a 100 mm check ruler on every sheet: if it measures anything else, the printer scaled the page and the pieces will not meet.

Score, cut, fold, glue

1. Score every fold line first, along the ruler, with an empty ballpoint pen: the card then folds exactly on the line.
2. Cut on the solid lines. If the kit marks openings to cut out, cut them before the outline, while the sheet still holds the piece.
3. Fold. On LotLens kits, dashed lines fold toward you into a ridge, dash-dot lines away from you into a valley.
4. Glue each numbered tab to the grey field with the same number. A thin line of glue is enough; hold it for a few seconds.

Build in order

Base first, then the walls on the base, one strip at a time. Join the roof pieces to each other before the roof goes on the walls. Under an overhang, the top tab of a wall folds outward and becomes the soffit the roof rests on.

How LotLens Model makes the kit

LotLens Model makes the kit for a house in the US from public data. The roof is measured from USGS 3D Elevation Program lidar: the laser points on the roof give each plane its pitch, direction and height. The walls are set in from the roof’s edge. Windows and doors are read from the street where a street sees the house, and drawn dotted where nobody could look. Where trees hide part of a roof from the lidar, the model is completed so the house always closes. The kit comes as a PDF to print, an SVG per sheet and a DXF for cutting machines.

Limits

• The walls are placed from the roof’s edge with a rule for the overhang, so a wall can sit about half a meter off, 5 mm at 1:100.
• No lidar survey, no model: the start page checks the address before you order.
• Small roof parts such as dormers may be simplified, and curved roofs or round walls become flat facets.