(gentle country music) - [Narrator] Silver shimmers in the sunlight.

Aluminum tinkles and sways in a light breeze.

This is the Beer Can House, just 10 minutes from downtown Houston.

It's a labor of love by John Milkovisch, who was said to have a six-pack a day habit.

(can cracking open) He needed to find something amusing to do with his collection of beer cans.

Milkovisch was a retired upholsterer for the South Pacific Railroad but had no real artistic training.

He hated mowing so he covered his entire front and backyard with concrete, studded with marbles and rocks.

Then, he began to cut, curl, and weld thousands of aluminum lids, pop tops, and labels from beer cans.

Using sheers and other tools of his trade, he flattened colorful empties into siding, or fashioned them into fences.

Outdoor curtains made from hundreds of can tops chime in the breeze.

Every part of the beer can was used for garlands, wind chimes, and sculptures.

It's estimated that more than 30,000 cans were used.

What started as a hobby turned into a Houston attraction.

Milkovisch died in 1988.

His wife, Mary, sold the house to the local non-profit, Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, in 2002.

Restoration revived the home's faded luster, and later it opened to the public as a folk-art museum.

Visitors come to the suburban neighborhood to marvel at one man's passion and ability to turn trash into treasure.

Milkovisch said it best in a quote painted inside his house, "They say every man should leave something "to be remembered by.

"At least I accomplished that goal."

(gentle country music fades) - [Narrator 2] Funding for The Shape of Texas is provided by Texas Society of Architects, and by a grant from Humanities Texas, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Summerlee Foundation of Dallas, Texas.