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.
