HOUSEHOLDERS are being offered the unique chance to see their home recreated in a museum and seen by up to half a million visitors a year.

Beamish Museum is developing a 1950s town at the open-air museum in County Durham and hopes to find a period semi-detached house to be recreated as part of the new exhibit.

Museum staff are now hoping residents will nominate their 1950s semi, or the house they grew up in, to be copied and exactly recreated in the museum – with the winner even able to enjoy a short stay in the completed home.

The house will form part of the Lottery-funded Remaking Beamish project, which aims to create a 1950s “town” in the museum, featuring a parade of shops, police house, cafe, cinema, recreation area and 1950s trolleybus system to transport visitors.

Museum director Richard Evans said: “We are extremely excited to be offering people this unique chance for their home to become part of history, being recreated at Beamish.

“Our 1950s town will tell the stories of the North East’s communities during an important decade of change.”

John Castling, one of the Remaking Beamish project officers, plans to nominate his own house in Framwellgate Moor, Durham, built in 1954.

He said: “It’s exactly the sort of house that my Dad, who grew up in the 1950s in Darlington, would have seen being built, he kind of place that had all the modern conveniences, such as an inside toilet, that we take for granted, and that he grew up without.

“It would be fantastic to have our house replicated at Beamish, where the 1950s decoration and objects would bring to life the story of how the world was different when my Dad grew up.”

Beamish staff will be visiting communities across the North East between January and March 2015 to share information on the Remaking Beamish project and encourage people to make nominations ahead of the closing date on March 5.

The house which will be included in the final plan will be picked by public vote between March 27 and March 30, 2015.

If you’d like to nominate a 1950s semi, complete the online form at beamish.org.uk, or send the museum a minute-long video clip, via a Youtube or Facebook link, explaining why you would like your house to be replicated.