Wednesday, March 8, 2017

An Embarrasment of Dollhouses

First, let me finish showing you Henry's house:
Came with a scooter!

Can you see the tailights of the scooter? The front end is pushed into a cubby under the stairs! A place for Harry Potter!

This is the only non-melissa & doug furniture that came with it, and it is a lovely vintage kitchen set.

at my house, in the window with the cloth over. and my caco peeps.
 So like I said, when I arrived home with this one, there was an email from the lady with a Lundby Stockholm, which actually IS the right scale for my Tomy furniture. (Henry's house is 1:12, too big for Tomy) But the email said she was sick and next good time to come would be Tuesday. I said Ok, I'll come up after work Tuesday, and didn't say anything to my family, who already think I'm a lunatic right now. Because who knows? Maybe I'll end up not buying it, right?
But I did. Buy it. Arrived home Tuesday night with a giant box in my back seat, wondering how I can sneak it in. So I just left it there and went in by myself. The spouse was there, wondering why I had come home so late.
"I had and appointment."
"With?"
"Well, I can't really tell you."
"Whhhhyyyyyy?"
"I gotta figure out a way to break it to you easy."
Then he gets this horrified look on his face, and I realize it sounds like I've got a bad medical diagnosis or something, so I blurt out "It's another house."
"A what?"
"Another house, I got another dollhouse!"
a long silence ensues
"I kind of wish you broke it to me gently, now."
So here's the Stockholm with some of my furniture in it:
The books that used to be on top of this bookcase are now stacked in my son's room.


Living room. Haven't hooked up any power yet.

Kitchen. One of the windows is out of its frame.

Do you have any funny "This dollhouse followed me home" stories? I'd love to hear them!

2017! What the heck?

Well last year evaporated without a return to hobbies, Mom passed away, kid is in the throes of teendom, but I have recently returned to my love of little things, especially houses and the things that go in them. I bought 3 more houses (because the sickness grabbed me fiercely this time, and weird logistics which I will explain) and this is not one of them: 
 But I did have to move this one onto my desk/worktable, in order to make things fit. Which is a good thing because this one has been languishing with paperback books in it ever since we moved (over two years ago now), so it is about time!
This is one I got off Craigslist several years ago, with mold issues, so I had to tear out all the interior walls and have yet to replace them. I love the exterior detail and refuse to part with it, so my family just shake their heads (spouse) and roll their eyes (daughter) and shrug their shoulders (son)  and wait for the next thing to happen.
Anyway, I believe the style is intended to be Brooklyn Brownstone, so the exterior surface needs to be refinished and I definitely need to subdivide the rooms. Also I'm going to make wainscoting for the walls.
So, I have some Tomy Smaller Homes and Gardens furniture that I have collected over the years, and I recently purchased another lot on ebay. This one, as a matter of fact:
I thought it would be nice to have the house to go with it, so I could display it. It is smaller than 1:12 scale, about 1:16 to 1:18, like Lundby dollhouses. Sadly, the only one I found was water damaged, but of course there I was, shopping for dollhouses, always a dangerous situation. I found a Wolverine metal lithographed dollhouse that I thought might be the right scale, and contacted that guy, and I found a free handmade in the seventies house and emailed that guy, and found a Lundby Stockholm, and emailed that owner. I heard back from the Wolverine guy right away, but not the other two. So, bird in the hand, right? I went and purchased the Wolverine (very good condition, no rust, with the box and awful plastic furniture that came with it) in the parking lot at Fry's Electronics 50 minutes away, and went on with the rest of my day.
Forgot to add the chimney for most of the photos!

with chimney!

Has white plastic woman, missing white plastic man tho'.

child's bedroom

This is actually a smaller scale than I intended.

so I think I'll be selling this one.

Later that day, the guy with the free 70's house emailed me back and suggested I come get the house. So I did. It's huge! Took up the whole back seat of my car. But I love it. I call it Henry's house because that's the name of the guy who built it.
This is now residing where the Brooklyn was.

It came with a ton of melissa & doug furniture

It doesn't have a roof, will have to remedy that.

I put a cloth over it to protect it from the sun

all the windows and doors are great!
The photos above are from the ad, before I brought it home.

Then I got home from that trip and guess who emailed me? The Lady with the Lundby!