My Pink Dollhouse

The year my daughter was born, 1992, we had just moved into a Victorian style house. For Christmas my husband gave me a Heritage dollhouse kit that he had seen. (It struck his fancy because it looked a lot like our house!) I had always wanted a real dollhouse and was thrilled. As soon as I had recovered from her delivery (C-section on Dec. 10th), I got it out and started working on it.

It wasn't a pre-fab kit that you just slap together in a couple of hours. It was a box full of wood slats, bags of wooden parts, a jillion cedar shingles, dowels, and on and on. It was a "build it from raw materials" --well, almost--kit. With a newborn and a four-year-old I didn't get too far... I worked on it for a couple of months, finished the foundation and put it away under my bed.

Fast forward 10 years. My daughter was looking for the dog under my bed and found the dollhouse box and foundation. Of course, she wanted me to get it out and finish it so she could play with it... So, once again, I pulled out the instuction book and made a decision to finish it no matter what. I bought a tiny miter box and saw and got started. Two years later I finished--building, that is.

After I finished it, I was so proud of my accomplishment and couldn't wait to furnish it. I went to buy furniture at a specialty shop in nearby Dallas. When I got there, the owner was giving a class on wiring dollhouses for lighting fixtures. Wiring dollhouses for lighting?! I hadn't even thought about that. I watched her for awhile and decided I didn't have the skills to do it, bought my furniture (with Christmas money from my husband) and went home. It was only after I had put the furniture in place that I decided I needed to do the wiring. So out came the furniture, back I went to the shop, and purchased electrical wiring supplies. Once the wiring was in, I had to wallpaper and lay carpet to hide the wires. Then came the ceiling fans and lamps. But finally, I finished.

Recently I met a miniatures artist on the forum at MakeMine Pink. She has the most amazingly realistic breads and pastries. We were chatting and she asked to see photos of my dollhouse. I realized that I had never photographed the finished product. (It is on display in my entryway, so I see it every day and never thought to take pictures.) Yesterday, I got out the camera and took photos of my treasure. So, Pei Li, here they are:

I hope you enjoyed your tour and that you will be encouraged to do something similar! If I can do it--anybody can!