In
December of 1990 I began a life-long dream of finally building a doll house. I
had been given one when I was a little girl...it was metal and nothing
in it would move. (I was the one
hiding behind the doll house....I hated having my picture taken)
I would see, very rarely, a doll house in a movie, or
a magazine, and would marvel at the miniatures and their details. Buy the way,
I do have Plexi-glass doors on my doll house...I don't want to keep up with
the dust of two houses!
The doll house I built
took about seven years and I am still not finished. I was telling someone the
other day that I don't think I want to finish it. And I'm not quite ready to
take on the challenge of another one...yet. I still have wall paper to put up,
and baseboards...painting and curtains, and all kinds of endless details
before I can say that I am finished. But I still put all my little things in
it.
These photos that I have
were taken a few years ago, before I bought my good camera. I need to go in
and take all new pictures and I will do this very soon. But for now, I
have these to show you. I have done more work to the doll house, even since
these pictures were taken, and it's killing me that you aren't going to see
the way it looks now, but you will.
And have you seen
the prices of doll house furnishings? Needless to say, I made a lot of things
myself....it's amazing what you can make out of ordinary things...a toothpaste
cap can be a lamp shade...a smaller cap becomes a smoke detector...carpet
tacks become candles, complete with stands. I have so much fun inventing
things for my doll house. There is a doll house store in the next town and I
like to go there and look at what they have and come home and make it.
THE KITCHEN
This
is my very favorite room in the doll house, and it shows...it looks a lot like
my own kitchen...I love a country house and a big, cozy kitchen. I even have
pet bowls in the kitchen in front of the refrigerator. For the water in the
bowl I used a couple drops of hot glue. When it dries it looks like water. On
the back of the kitchen wall you see a black and white 'Kit Kat Clock'.
I have a real one and I made this one out of Play-Doh and then I painted it to
match mine. I made a cuckoo clock in much the same way and did fancy painting
on it. On the kitchen sink you will notice a little wooden drain board for the
dishes...I made that from toothpicks. And I hand carved the bar of soap from
real soap. I also hand-painted my dishes with Pennsylvania Dutch Tole work.
BATHROOM
This was another favorite room to
decorate and make things for. I even have Listerine and floss. I used
miniature wooden spools and wound real strips of toilet paper around them to
make rolls of toilet paper. There is even a kitty in the cat box. That is a
hot water bottle on the wall...what were you thinking? I made Q-tips and
towels and even the back brush. You'd be surprised at the things that you can
make yourself.
You have to have the hands of a surgeon and
the patience of Job to make a doll house. I won't let my husband near it. He
has HUGE hands that look like a pack of Ball Park Franks hot dogs. One time he
got around my doll house, bumped into it, and knocked a lot of things over. He
thought he could fix it back. When I got home and looked at it, it looked like
it had been robbed and trashed. I also won't let him wash my sweaters.
Children can wear some of the clothes that used to fit me before Les washed
them.
THE LIVING ROOM
AND THE MASTER BEDROOM
I'm not happy with these
photos at all, but you do get the idea of how they look. The living room has
much more in it. The hard wood floors were done one board at a time...very
time-consuming. On the master bedroom floor you can see the cuckoo clock I
made. I hadn't hung it up yet when the pictures were taken. A girlfriend of
mine was visiting London, England and bought a miniature suit of armor for my
doll house. I treasure that. I hadn't received it yet when the pictures
were taken, so that's why you don't see it.
THE ATTIC AND THE
SEWING ROOM AND THE MAYTAG WASHER
The
attic and sewing room needs a ton of work done to it. I have more that I have
done to this section now, but I still have a lot to do. In my own house my
sewing room is a lot bigger than this room...and because I am a seamstress, I
would have to have a large sewing room in my doll house.
Next we have
my precious Maytag washer. I paid $42.00 for this washer. It has real rubber
hoses and wheels and all the little parts move. And it is metal...very well
made....well, it's a Maytag! And because I live in the south, I knew to roll
it out on the porch. This is my most prized possession for my doll house.
I
even have a deed for my doll house. I call the house 'Scruggwood'. I
read a story one time that an elderly man, in his retirement, made his wife a
doll house. It was an exact replica of their own home. The doll house meant
the world to the woman. She and her husband made out their wills and the
children, all daughters, wondered who would inherit this treasure. When the
woman passed away her husband burned the doll house, as his wife requested.
They had decided that the house was for her and her alone.
'The
General Store'
Before
I ever built my doll house I built a little General Store. This was sort of
like a practice run for me. The nice thing about having these things is that
you can always move things around and buy things to add to them. Both the doll
house and the General Store are built on a one inch scale. The little glass
jars filled with food are actually empty vaccine vials from when I worked at
the animal clinic. I would just clean them up, instead of throwing them away,
and put real food in them. They resemble large apothecary jars.
I will replace these
photos with ones that are up-to-date very soon!
