Model home took over 400 hours to create
Talk about devotion to your craft.
Carlo Carlucci spent nearly five months constructing the scale model of the Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation Home Lottery’s $3.79 million show home.
To create the scale model — an exact replica of the show home that’s one metre wide and half a metre tall — he used 1,400 jumbo popsicle sticks, a thousand mini glue sticks and various pieces of recycled foam for the bricks. All told, the project took him 433 hours to complete.
Carlucci, who has built and donated two previous scale model homes for the lottery, got especially creative this year: he took an old crystal chandelier from his basement and used it to make a tiny rotating chandelier for the upper bedroom of the scale model, which is currently on display at the hospital’s lottery booth. “I’m really good with the ideas, if I do say so myself,” says the 52-year-old retired paper-mill worker from Thorold, Ont. The actual lottery show home — located at 8 Thornhill Avenue in Thornhill — is a 7,662 square foot mansion with four bedrooms, marble floors, gourmet kitchen and home spa. While obviously proud of the scale model he’s created, Carlucci stresses he didn’t do this for his own gratification. Cancer has taken from him several loved ones: his sister-in-law and father-in-law. “So many people are dying from this disease,” he says. “It’s terrible there’s still no cure.” “So this is just my way of helping. I can’t just sit back — I’m doing what I can, my way.” Carlucci, who says he’s always been “crafty, handy, making something or doing something,” built his first scale model for the lottery in 2010. The idea came to him when he received a lottery flyer in the mail and was impressed by the home on the front cover. To create his most recent scale model Carlucci worked off pictures lottery organizers had sent him.
He spent from early October until the end of February building it. “Some days I worked an hour, two or three. Other days I worked eight hours on it,” he says. “Or I if I was up through the night I’d work on it.”
The scale model took a few seasons to build, but Carlucci didn’t mind putting in the time or effort. “It makes me feel good, knowing I’ve done something in my way to help.”