My newest acquisition. I was told that this dollhouse has been passed down through generations, and that it was made to resemble a family home. The previous owners decided that they didn’t have room for it and there was no longer an interest in keeping it, and so I purchased it.
Unfortunately my family recently lost the beloved real home of my grandparents, so this dollhouse came at a good time for me. It lost its family, and I lost a house. Maybe together we can find a little closure.
My ultimate plan is to turn this into my own family heirloom, as it slightly resembles my great-great-aunt’s house, which I have loved since childhood. It will only require new paint to emphasize the bricks, the addition of some small architectural details such as decorations in the roof peaks and some fancy brickwork, and replicas of a few family heirlooms.
Shortly after it arrived.
This house doesn’t fit in my real house-it’s about 3 feet square. As a consequence it resides in my garage until I can get a bigger house, or make the door bigger! It’s fine, though, as I spend a lot of time in my garage. Anyway…
First things first, I decided that I need to get functional windows made and put in, to keep out any mice or insects.
I wrapped it in seran wrap over the winter to discourage pests. This is one wall of windows completed.
Using instructions posted in another article on this blog, I made all of the windows. Yay! Next, I wanted to make brick designs that go over the windows, to more closely resemble those found on my great-great-aunt’s house.
The bricks I added aren’t exactly the same as those on my aunt’s house, but I think with some creative painting I might pull off some similarity.
Fortunately for me, the house came with a few strips of wood with ‘bricks’ left over from the siding. It wasn’t quite enough to do the whole job, so I made more by gluing sandpaper to popsicle sticks, and then cut the sticks into brick-sized pieces.
Some of the old bricks and some of my ‘new’ ones made with popsicle sticks. They were virtually the same.
Now on to paint!
The paints I used. I used the paints right out of the bottle, plus mixed them together on a pallet to make new colors that are similar shades. I wanted them all to look like similar bricks but not all the same color.I wanted them all to look similar yet different. One side done. I will go back to the window bricks when the sides are all painted, and then, eventually, I will paint all of the trim.
When I am done with all sides plus the windows, my plan is to put a watered-down gray wash over the whole thing to add some weathering.
Here are some photos of the inside, which has not been touched (or unfortunately cleaned) yet.
A parlor or living room?A bedroomThe stairwayAnother bedroom. Love all of those angular ceilings!Another bedroom. It even has closets!!Upstairs hallway, with stairs to the attic.Another bedroomThe kitchenDining room
This house has lots of nice details, like closets and some built-ins, and the rooms are very big! The attic is only accessible by small windows. It does need some minor repairs, but it will be fun!
I am not sure how old this house is. When they say ‘generations’ it may just be made by grandma and given to grandchild. There is no real telling as I can see some updated items, and nothing points to this being an actual antique. It could be older, though, under its newer paint and flooring, as some houses are updated through the generations. I can say fairly confidently that it is one of a kind.
I can’t wait to get more done on this! This is my 13th dollhouse/structure. It’s nice because most of my houses have little projects that can be done on them, so I can pick and choose what I feel like working on on any given day. After the initial outside work, this house will be mostly a furniture-project house, as the inside is mostly decorated nicely already. Stay tuned for more updates!
I am an avid horseshoe collector, and often find myself in possession of a particularly rusty specimen that has been buried for years, if not centuries. I have tried several methods, with varying results, to remove excess rust so that any distinguishing characteristics are more easily recognized, such as the nails and any maker’s marks. These are a few methods that I have tried so far.
Very old British horseshoes before cleaning. I had to scrape off a LOT of flaky rust and dirt. If I hadn’t, they would shed a lot of grime with just handling them, as some of them had been buried for hundreds of years. Also, rust can be ongoing even after removing them from the ground, and I want to preserve them the best that I can.
Evapo-Rust. This product can be purchased at different hardware stores or auto supply stores. It’s a chemical that you can soak rusty parts in to get them clean. I have used this on my horseshoes and, while I did really like the results, I ended up soaking the shoes for far longer than the directions recommended. I had to soak them for a few hours, scrub them with a hard-bristled steel brush, and soak them again, over and over to achieve the desired results. Granted, if the shoes didn’t have a thick deposit of rust on them the job went very quickly, but for shoes with heavy accumulations of caked-on rust and grime, it was a very tedious process, and the chemical cost me about $25 a gallon. It only takes off so much rust before it needs to be disposed of and replaced, so for a lot of shoes it can be expensive.
This shoe was cleaned with Evapo-Rust. It looks about the same as one with Vinegar. There are a few flakes of fresh rust (the reddish brown. Dark brown is treated) where my Rustoleum didn’t cover well, or where I picked off a tiny chunk of treated rust afterwards, exposing untreated metal. It is important to spray SEVERAL COATS of paint on front and back, and the thin sides as well, to prevent further rust from forming and further damaging your shoe. I will have to put another coat on this one.
White Vinegar. This is my go-to method at the moment. I simply soak the shoes for about 20 minutes or so, scrub them with a steel-bristled brush to remove rust, and soak them some more until they look the way i want. Afterwards I soak them for a short time in water with baking soda in it to neutralize the acids from the vinegar. Be careful not to soak your items for too long in the vinegar, as it will eventually eat away at the metal. I vaguely recall trying this method when i was a child and being very disappointed when my shoes were very, very pitted after having been forgotten for, say, a month or so. It’s ok to soak them for that long if you keep checking on them and scrubbing to help the process, but if you throw them in the vinegar and forget about them forever, the chemical will eat into the metal.
I suspect that this shoe was one that I carelessly soaked in vinegar and forgot about as a child. Notice the excessive pitting and how some of the nail holes are eaten through at the edges. In my area, this shoe isn’t much older than 100-150ish years old. While being buried in different environments might cause this damage, the lack of rust makes me suspect it is from the vinegar accident of my childhood.
Vinegar is cheap and easily obtained. I keep an old covered tote with a gallon of vinegar to soak my shoes in. Afterwards I wash them with soap and water, using a soft scrub brush. I use hot water so they dry quickly, then finish off with a few coats of clear Rustoleum spray paint, which prevents new rust from forming.
A soap water scrub after removing most of the rust.
Whichever method you decide to use, you will want to remove as much dirt and flaky rust as possible beforehand. If the rust is really thick and flaky, I use a thin scraper of some sort to gently pry between the layers. Always wear safety goggles and be careful not to stab yourself with whatever you use. Only pry a tiny bit, as whatever you are trying to pry might be a part of the original metal, and you don’t want to ruin the piece. I merely pick at it and see what flakes off easily. After you have removed some of this surface rust, the chemicals will more easily get to the metal beneath.
Other methods. There are other methods that can be used, such as electrolysis or a grinding wheel. I have not used these methods, but i have shoes that were cleaned using them.
Electrolysis involves soaking the shoes and using electricity. It appears to work extremely well, but involves special equipment.
This shoe was cleaned using electrolysis. I bought it this way. Every bit of rust is gone, and if treated properly with rust-preventive chemicals like Rustoleum, wax, or etc., it will hopefully stay that way.
If using a grinding wheel, you can attach a wire wheel and use that to remove rust. There are also other attachments that can be used to buff the metal. My dad did this with one of my first horseshoes as a child. I worry that this method might damage the surface of the shoe, but on the backside of it I can make out a lot of detail from its original forging, so the scrape marks on the front could be original.
BacksideFront side. This shoe was cleaned with a grinding wheel.
Other Chemicals. You can use Coca Cola or lemon juice in the same way as the vinegar. I haven’t used these methods in years but they do work. Just don’t forget them in the solution!
Bear in mind that whatever method you use to remove the rust, if not treated properly and according to instructions, the rust will come back, sometimes even within minutes of being removed. I honestly don’t mind a little bit of rusty patina and have experimented with giving some of my freshly cleaned shoes a spritz of water and letting them sit for a day or so to get a little of the color before spraying them with clear Rustoleum to stop the process and preserve them. My main goal of cleaning them is to remove the thick rust that obscures detail.
This is an ancient shoe from Great Britain that I created a rusty patina on. It was cleaned with vinegar. Notice that it is very difficult to clean around nails and in nail holes, but cleaning the shoes will expose them enough to identify them better.
I also have a lot of more recent horseshoes that I did not remove the rust from, as it wasn’t as thick and obscuring. I simply clean them well with a wire brush if necessary, and then spray them with several coats of Rustoleum clear paint (the one that specifically stops rust). They still look good and stay protected.
This is the clear spray I use. Be sure to get the one that says ‘STOPS RUST’This donkey (or small mule) shoe didn’t have a thick coat of rust, so I simply treated it with preserving clear paint.
In the end, the most important thing is preservation. Rust eats away at the metal of the shoe, and if not treated properly, it will continue to eat away at them after you find them. Make sure you don’t destroy them by soaking too long, and make sure you prevent further rust corrosion by treating them afterwards. After treating them it is important to store them in a dry environment to make sure the treatment works. I keep my prizes filed in narrow boxes with cardboard in between them, like a file cabinet.
While not very pretty, this storage works for me at the moment until i can find something that suits my tastes better. It has to be strong enough to support the weight of all of my shoes.
Hopefully, with proper care, these shoes will last for generations to come. (You’re welcome, kids! Have fun!)
This is above the door.It even has a little wooden church organ!Lots of damage on this side. Most of the tissue paper windows are gone.
This structure is actually an old model of a long-gone church. It was reportedly made by an early boyscout troupe. The couple I bought it from says that they purchased it online through an auction, and that it was damaged during shipping. They didn’t remember what state they bought it from– possibly Wyoming or Wisconsin. They had made a few repairs, but this is what it is, now.
The stained glass windows are actually made of old tissue paper, that might be original, as it is brittle and discolored, and has remnants of some of the (I think) original paint on it. I also have discovered some tissue paper pasted to the floors in designs. There are small pews made of varnished cardboard, and a ‘priest’ made from a small Kewpie doll :).
I don’t plan to alter this piece. My ideas include placing clear plastic sheets on the floor to preserve the papers (they are flaking off and look very messy). I also would like to make a few clay pigeons to perch around inside and out, to give it an abandoned feel. I may add a tiny paper wasp nest and an owl.
I made a cardboard base that is covered with fake turf, and have been working on a tiny graveyard for the background. I will post pictures when it starts coming together.
Front view.Side view. Panels on the side lift up on hinges, and have a wooden dowel that helps hold them up while you play.
As you can see, this window needs some restoration. I eventually used Museum Wax to stick the glass back under the thick paper frame.
My cat’s back is in this shot- don’t be alarmed, it’s just Teracles :).This is an upstairs room. Old wiring in the attic, that was modified by a recent owner with a more modern plug. Not sure how safe this would be to plug in, so I choose not to.
This is another marketplace find. The couple I bought this house from had found it in an antique shop many years ago. Apparently it was built in 1887, by a doctor, to give to his daughter. I confirmed with members of my antique dollhouse group on Facebook that this is probably authentic, as the glass is thick and imperfect, the wood looks to be from old-growth trees, and it was popular at that time to make houses out of crates. This house also appears to have been modified slightly through the generations, as someone added electricity via antique Christmas lighting.
It came furnished with a variety of Strombecker furniture, plus a pair of Erna Meyer dolls. I have decided to decorate the downstairs as a small general store (1800’s style), with the store keeper and his wife residing in the upper level.
When I was younger we had the opportunity to walk through a General Store that had been closed up, with all goods intact, for many decades. It was a magical moment to step into the past like that, and I would like to try to recreate that feeling (at least to a degree) in this dollhouse. The old store had a post office inside, goods on shelves and hanging from the ceiling, lots of old displays, and all sorts of stuff.
I don’t plan on altering the house itself in any way that can’t be undone. I have decided that any beams that I add for hanging goods will be held in place with museum wax so they can be easily removed.
Some of the included furnishings.
I moved all of the ‘living’ furniture into the upper floors of the house, and any that didn’t quite fit in were stored in the dollhouse’s attic. Next step will be getting store furnishings, and making goods to sell!
I made this 2 sided store display out of craft sticks and split dowels.
First I made this 2 sided display out of craft sticks. I figured that it would work well in one of the windows as a display. I stained it and loaded the shelves with extra dollhouse items I had lying around.
One side, stained and with items added.The other side with items added.
Next, I found a cool post office display and bought it off ebay.
Post office display, along with packages and letters, on my messy desk (sorry!)
I also acquired a glass display counter and a few more goods for the store. Here is how it currently looks:
Display counter, post office, and window display all installed. There is also a cast iron stove and a grindstone pencil sharpener.A closer view. The glass display domes were bought at Hobby Lobby and the cool, intricate scale was found on ebay. The cash register is a metal pencil sharpener.
Obviously there is much more work to be done. I would like to make some horse harness and tack to put on display, as well as removable beams across the ceiling to hang goods from, like candles and baskets. At some point, I would also like to figure out how to make antique-looking medicine bottles (I collect them in real life) that can be displayed on shelves or even in the glass display case. One of the fun things about doll houses is that you can always come up with fun ideas for future projects.
I found this dollhouse on Marketplace for $20, and I just love the simple design! It reminds me so much of a 1700’s colonial, that I am going to decorate it for that era, as well as I can.
When I found this dollhouse on Markeplace for $20, I just had to have it! It reminds me of a 1700’s colonial (first period home), with its simple design and nice wood siding.
Wouldn’t this be awesome with a walk-in fireplace?The inside needs some definite updating.
The first thing I did when I brought this huge, heavy dollhouse home was to scrape off the old shingles. They appear to have been made out of sandpaper, which seemed to have worked well enough, but they were in such poor, water-damaged shape that I felt I needed to wash my hands thoroughly after handling it.
This handy tool holds a razor blade that I can use for scraping paint and whatever.
Next, I used a handy-dandy paint scraper, and went to work scraping off some of the peeling paint from the floors, walls, and ceiling.
While scraping the paint off. I focused more on removing any peeling paint, as I plan to put a thin coat of plaster on the walls, with some thin wood supports in walls and ceiling, to give it a more primitive effect.
So far, I plan to apply a thin coat of plaster to give the walls a more uneven white texture, with thin pieces of wood applied to walls and ceilings to suggest supports that I can hang things like dried herbs and baskets from. Because of this, I was only interested in removing flaking paint (which there was a lot of).
Using methods similar to those used in the farmhouse, I applied jumbo craft sticks to mimic real wood floors. I cut the rounded tips off the sticks with poultry shears and then applied them with glue, weighting them down in places that wouldn’t quite stay put. I used an xacto knife to trim around doorways and walls.
Next, I decided to work on the upstairs floors. I want to go with a pine board effect, similar to my farmhouse, but I would like the floors to look more weathered and stained. I plan to score the wood lightly with an xacto knife, to add wood grain, and then lightly stain them before varnishing.
Update:
This is the updated roof! After removing the paper shingles that were in poor shape, I made slate-like shingles (described in another post) out of vinyl floor tiles.
Next, I painted the walls white, using a thick paint so it looked like a thin coat of plaster. I took wood from an old flowerbed border fence, so it would have some nice weathering to it, and used that to make some wooden support beams for the lower floor. I carefully opened up the area under the stairs, so I can use it as a storage closet (I will eventually make a door for it).
A current photo of the lower floor. I have been experimenting with different flooring in the main room, and at the moment have settled on a combination of small ceramic tiles and leftover pieces of linoleum. I have tiny candle bundles hanging from the wooden beams, as well as baskets and a lantern. The fireplace is a ceramic walk-in style that I found on ebay.
