As Edward and I were moving out of our last house in June, 2011, he casually asked me if I wanted to take a dollhouse he found in the (dank, dirt-floored) basement with us.
Initially, I said no because quite frankly, anything emanating from that basement was a mouldering mess and was best left to continue its quiet decay in peace. But Edward mentioned that it was in pretty good shape. After I agreed to take a look, I was really pleased with its potential, and made room for it on the truck.
Its provenance is a mystery, but the multiple layers of paint suggest that it's at least 40 years old. It's completely home made from various scrap pieces of wood, which add to its charm, but doesn't make it square or level by any stretch of the imagination.
Most dollhouse purists would shudder at the thought of giving a 4 year old a fully furnished, "adult" house, but the stars briefly aligned to allow me time to work on it (ie. baby still napping in the afternoon, me still off work). There would never be another opportunity like that!
So starting in September, I carved out a few hours a week to work on it - and it took a lot of work. Coats of primer on every surface, seven coats of paint on the floor, 4-5 coats of paint on the walls, wallpapering the master bedroom, stencilling the bathroom floor, sewing curtains and pillows, putting in baseboards, shingling the roof one piece at a time and staining it, painting the furniture, putting down "grass", putting up lights, making a fireplace and art.... the list felt endless, but it was a ton of fun and some much-needed creative problem solving. My mother kept teasing me about who the dollhouse was really for, but much to my surprise, it's been a hit with all of the Ducklings... and Malcolm, who is gentler with it than the others.
I'm very glad I took pictures of the finished product on Christmas Eve, because it has since been loved into a state of partial destruction. The curtains are ripped down, the fireplace destroyed, the bedrooms turned into forests, airports and train stations.... I've gathered the rubble, and at some point - but not too soon - I'll fix it again. Perfection made imperfect by excited little hands and big imaginations is perfection in its own right.
You can click on each picture to make them bigger.
The dollhouse in our current workshop, in its original condition. It was covered in grime, cobwebs and other squicky things. It got a really, really good cleaning.
The finished dollhouse, Christmas Eve. I used left over house paint for the interior and exterior. The path is made of small pebbles set one at a time, and the address on the black plaque reads "925", the Ducklings' birthdate. The lights on top are battery-powered "fairy lights".
The original interior. I was puzzled by the choices of paint colour, until I realized they were originally various shades of white with more than a hint of tobacco smoke. I left the black paint around the edges as a testament to the house's history - but not before I tested it for lead content.
The finished interior. All the dolls are in bed, ready for their adventures on Christmas morning!
Living room. All the material used for the pillows, curtains and rugs in the house came from my fabric stash. The ceiling lights are battery powered LEDs that you can tap on and off. I put tissue paper over the lights to warm up and dim the light they gave off, but the paper lasted less than a minute once they came in contact with small children.
The kitchen. It also has a stove and a counter on the other side.
Big girl's room (leads out to balcony). I made the bead banner on the wall; the heart centrepiece was repurposed from a broken necklace of Evelyn's.
Master bedroom. The wallpaper is dollar store contact paper.
The nursery
The bathroom. I stencilled the floor with a Sharpie to create a tiled look.
A close-up of the fireplace, on.
The various components of the fireplace: twigs cut and glued together with red, amber and yellow beads added for effect. I glued the twigs to cardboard I bent into shape and painted black. The red feet are beads. The "fire" is a small (florist-sized) battery operated LED twist-on light covered in a few layers of orange and yellow tissue paper. It isn't too robust, but it was lovely while it lasted!
I bought all the furniture from various on-line sellers. The living room sofa and chairs, the kitchen, most of the master bedroom furniture and the bathroom fittings came from an Etsy seller in the UK, and was the cheapest I could find, even with shipping included. It was a bonus that she custom made it! I also bought quite a few pieces through Amazon.ca. These were cheap but surprisingly well made. However, I did have to paint them to cover the mismatched wood tones, or just to spice things up a little. I bought a few pieces from Canadian on-line dollhouse stores, but the mark-up with them is considerable. Had one of the Amazon sellers not lost my order in the mail at the last moment, I would not have gone that route.
The dollhouse furniture I chose is scaled 1:12, which is the most common scale available. One inch in miniature equals one foot in real life. As our dollhouse is home made, it isn't a perfect match for that scale, but its absolutely fine for our purposes.
No comments:
Post a Comment