From junk to homestead, these artists know how to turn the strangest things into something beautiful with unique designs — and materials.

Bodan Litnianski emigrated from the Ukraine to France in 1930 with no money. He had no place to live, so he bought a ruined house for his family to live in. He restored it with glass fragments and shells, and later added anything to it that he could find, like plastic toys and even televisions.

 

The Bottle Houses (the six-gabled house, the tavern and the chapel) in Prince Edward Island, Canada were made of 25,000 recycled bottles by the late Édouard T. Arsenault.

The Six-Gabled House

The Tavern

The Chapel

John Milkovich had a six-beer a day habit, and that habit eventually turned into a home. After saving the cans for years, he decided to cut the cans tops and bottoms off and use their sides for the exterior of his home in Houston, Texas. And the Beer Can House was born. He then added a beer can fence and beer can sculptures, windmills and wind chimes to his yard.

 

Shortly after his mother died, Charlie Fields started painting his family house in red, white and blue with polka dot designs everywhere. Everything in the house, from the chairs to the doors to the ceilings, was covered in polka dots. That’s why this house was eventually named the Polka Dot House, which can be found on Big Cedar Creek.