Struggling with houses

I tried to look at artwork of Ratatouille and then use the technique in my own work, but it didn't help. I can't get life into the Illustrator houses. There's nothing I can do about it, I will only use it as reference, because it is way to stiff to use for what I have in mind.

 Illustration of the book ; Art of Ratatouille (I can't get the image to turn) ↓:

Me trying to make something like it with my own houses and failing ↓: 

And then I tried something different and I liked it a lot better ↓.