When I was a child, I had a dollhouse. My parents bought it for one of my birthdays, my older brother assembled it, gluing and punching out the pre-cut forms, and I absolutely loved it. It came with ready-to-assemble furniture and a Victorian family: mom, dad, son, daughter, and housekeeper. I wiled away hours and hours fixing up rooms, rearranging, and pretending.
As the years passed, my interest waned and the dollhouse ended up on a shelf, gathering dust.
But when I moved out and got married, I packed up the house and all its bits and pieces, and took it with me. Over the first 15 years or so of our marriage, I would occassionally pull it down from the attic, dress it up for Christmas, and set it out to enjoy.
Sadly, a few years ago, my beloved dollhouse got broken after something heavy fell on it in the storage room. Sniff. I packed away what remained of the furniture and accessories and put it out of my mind.
Lately, I've been itching to get my hands on a dollhouse once more. So I put the word out on Facebook that I was looking for a simple used house, and a friend responded. She sold me her own attic bound house for $30. I brought it home, cleaned it up, and began planning.
Here is what it looked like. Its owner had sprayed it a light yellow and you can see that a bit of paint got on the windows. I cleaned them with acetone and vegetable oil and Q-tips. It took a while to get it all removed, but the windows are clean now.
The interior was totally unfinished but for two walls of peeling wallpaper that I removed.
As you can see, the house is large, a 1:12 scale with plenty of rooms to primp, which makes me very happy.
I've already painted the outside a clean white, but until I have a front and side door, and have it Christmas-a-fied, you'll have to wait to see the exterior.
Fiona helped me clean and dust the rooms, and get all the walls, trim, and ceilings painted crisp white.
My favorite.
Now comes the really fun part: D E C O R A T I N G.
Fiona and I decided to go with a modern/boho theme and our goal is to try to craft as much as possible ourselves. We've been finding DIY furniture tutorials and getting plenty of inspiration online and today spent our spare time repurposing, painting, cutting, gluing and staining.
Our first room to reno will be the master bedroom. I created this inspiration board to give you an idea of our design.
Dollhouse Bedroom by alison-tweed-agnew featuring a bronze mirror
Isn't it fun?
Be sure to check back in a few days to see the finished room!
Be sure to check back in a few days to see the finished room!
Alison