I was extremely lucky, because I also had three additional floors for it, including this garage extension:
And this one with the most fantastic 'forest' wallpaper:
I won't show you the third one. I didn't much like the wallpaper in that one and, besides, I can't find a picture of it on Google images....
Anyway, this fabulous house was filled with c. 1980s Lundby and Barton/ Caroline's Home furniture and accessories. If you're curious to see the sort of things I had, you can check out my Pinterest. The house and much of its contents were bought for me by my mother and grandmother, whose house it always lived it. I spent countless hours rearranging the furniture, accidentally kneeling or standing on some bits having put them on the floor beside or behind me as I did so... oops. The house remained at my grandmother's long after I'd grown up and stopped playing with it because my young cousins would do so when they visited her.
After my grandmother died in 2010, I decided to take the house and restore it - it didn't matter that I was pregnant with a son, rather than a daughter, at the time. Sadly, I discovered that my grandmother had, albeit well-meaning, covered the floors with scraps of velvet and carpet and the walls with wallpaper offcuts - badly. And used superglue to stick everything down. The prospect of restoring it from the state it was in was way beyond my capabilities, and the thought of renovating it into something more modern never crossed my mind at the time, so I decided to sell it. I spent many happy hours identifying the approximate age and origin of the furniture, which had also included some old Dol-Toi and Mattel 'The Littles' items, as well as a number of others that weren't quite the right scale for a 1:16 doll's house but had lived in mine quite happily anyway. I listed everything on eBay and made a decent amount of money from it. I was happy.
A couple of years later as I was wandering round my local charity shops I came across this:
A near-perfect condition Caroline's Home in its original box. They only wanted £5 for it. I figured I'd stick it on eBay and maybe make a bit of profit... until I went into another shop and found this:
That's a Caroline's Home wardrobe - I'd had one in my Lundby doll's house. It was 50p. That clinched it. I was going to restore this thing and fill it with the furniture I'd had in my house as a child. It would be my new hobby.
Initially, that's exactly what I did. Charity shops, car boot sales and good old eBay were how I tracked down most of the items. Whilst I primarily focused on the things I'd once had, I also acquired things like this pink bathroom suite, hoping to furnish the house solely with Caroline's Home items - my Lundby House had had a Lundby bathroom suite.
However, this particular piece would require some renovation - the bathroom taps are broken. I started researching restoration techniques figuring that a custom renovation might be easier than tracking down replacement parts. Whilst doing so I came across some beautifully renovated Lundby houses - and I decided I wanted to do the same. When I'd wanted to restore my own house it had been with the intention of getting it back to its original condition. Now I could see that didn't have to be the case - I could repaint it, repaper it, do it up in my own style, make things for it and still incorporate the furniture and decorations I'd loved as a child. I trawled eBay and placed the winning bid on this:
Whilst it isn't quite the same as the one I'd had as a child, being a slightly more recent model, I didn't mind since my original intention was to completely redecorate it. However, once I'd got it home and had a little play with the furniture that had come with it, I decided I wanted to keep some of the original wallpaper to have as 'feature walls'. I found a way of making a removable template so I can cover it up and change it according to the style of room I'm creating, just in case I get the urge to start rearranging things as I did as a child, which I almost inevitably will....
It's a work in progress and, aside from acquiring a lot more furniture and miniature items to put in it, not much progress has been made in terms of redecorating the house itself. It's been a while since I did anything with it at all, but I've always got my eye out for 'ickle fings' to put in it. These pictures show off some of my favourite acquisitions so far and the sort of style I'm ultimately going for:
This last one is of my 'crazy cat lady' bedroom - it's not the most up-to-date version of this room, which now boasts several more cats and 'ladies' items including a whole load of 'Bratz' bits that were the perfect scale. This room's theme was inspired by my finding that sign (a fridge magnet) and being reminded of Jenny Joseph's poem 'Warning' and that scene in 'Friends' where Chandler predicted he'd become 'Crazy Snake Man' (1). My son does not mind that I have 'borrowed' bits of his Playmobil in order to complete this look....
There is more doll's house stuff on my Pinterest, including a board showing the things that have inspired me to get creative. And when I get around to it, I'll share the results.
(1) When I was single I'd said the same thing, except I'd have cats, hence the kids would've called me 'Crazy Cat Lady', and there you have it....
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