My Willowcrest Dollhouse

In the late ’90s my grandmother built me a Willowcrest Dollhouse from a Greenleaf kit. She was new to the craft and put a lot of literal blood, sweat, and tears into the effort. I remember her fingers often being bandaged from working to cut out the pieces.



She had taken my sister and me to the hobby store to pick out a kit for each of us, and we got to choose the paint colors for the finish, too. I loved the Victorian Mansard style and deep, rich colors. Nana built the whole thing and finished the outsides, leaving us the interior to optionally finish at a later date.









She often took us shopping for dollhouse furniture, and I had no idea at the time the value of all these things. As my interest in dollhouses has renewed this year, I am certainly learning the physical and monetary costs for myself.




The house took a bit of damage since we moved at least a half dozen times since its construction, and I had to remove all the roof shingles since so many were pulling away. Earlier this year I wired it, my first time working with dollhouse wiring. I've primed all the rooms and am oh-so-slowly trying to paint the staircase hallways before papering the rest. Of course we didn't know it would be so difficult to do after construction, and any sane person would probably leave those crevasses empty, but I have tiny hands, an artistic heart, patience, and no small bit of stubbornness on my side.









Unfortunately, life has been quite hectic all summer with marathon training taking up most of my free time, and I've not made any progress in two or three months. That's why I started a small room box project in the meantime: I can work on it on the coffee table and complete significant pieces in a small amount of time, compared to hauling the Willowcrest to the dining table, tipping it and propping it upside-down or on its side, relying on a hand mirror to reach the stairwell, and waiting hours for many coats of paint to dry. But hopefully I will find time again.

The Tennyson Dollhouse

In the late ’90s my grandmother built my sister a Tennyson dollhouse from a Greenleaf kit.










Now it sits in my bedroom with my surplus dollhouse furniture, waiting for Sis to move back to the area.

Sacré Bleu

I've had a renewed interest in dollhouses this year, and in addition to remodeling the one my late grandmother built for me, I've been watching Craigslist regularly for others to cherish.

When a beautiful Windflower Manor listing dropped from $200 to $70, I jumped on the opportunity, contacted the seller, and asked my aunt to come with me to pick it up because at 52 inches tall, it certainly wouldn't fit in my Corolla. It was even bigger than I'd imagined, and the seller had cut the price again to $60 for a recent garage sale.



She said it was built in the ’80s, and her mother-in-law was going to get rid of it a few years ago, so she drove up to Chicago to bring it back to Texas and had begun refurbishing it. But her 2-year-old took a liking to it, specifically to climbing on it, so it HAD to go.



Yes, it's absurdly large, but I'll have fun decorating the interior and touching up some of the minor wear and tear. It's in nice shape overall, though. And I certainly won't be tempted to buy any more dollhouses as long as I live here — I now have three sitting in my room since there's not space in the craft room, and I wouldn't trust the cats anyway.



I'll not be able to work on it any time soon since the Willowcrest still needs finished and I'm presently working on a witch cottage room box, but it will be a great place to keep the surplus of miniature furniture I have while I work on the other house. And I'll share more pictures of all these in future posts.

Delicious New Music!

Banks released the album Altar on September 30, and it is glorious.

Beats Antique just released Shadowbox album today, and it is HOT.

I'm sorry I don't know how to embed a Spotify playlist, but go listen to these. Seriously.

And for good measure, here's the Luke Cage playlist.