JaimeG

I have a real tester, not a dollhouse specific tester....will a real circuit tester work or do I need the dollhouse one? Thanks....I think I'll call the Little Dollhouse Company store in Toronto that I've ordered from in the past and see what they suggest for the transformer.

Hi Darby, Once you have 5 posts under you belt, you can post pictures and see if someone here can ID the house for you. Being new to dollhouses myself and having renovated a dollhouse I found at a thrift shop, I can offer a few pieces of advice... First you need to decide how far you are going to renovate...a coat of paint? or are you pulling all the pieces off and starting over? I found a hairdryer to be helpful to soften glue in order to take things apart - the interior trim, stairs and window trim were not the colour I wanted, so a hot hairdryer and a putty knife helped me separate the pieces. I wet down all the wallpaper and scraped it off - the house had a pretty serious mildew odor - so removing all the old wallpaper and a good primer were important. figure out what tools you need and gather them ahead of time - putty knife, small paint brushes, sandpaper etc... Ask questions here - the folks here are helpful and are able to help out with specific issues. Good luck! Jaime

Welcome JennaLynne. As a new member myself, I find this to be a very friendly and helpful community. What a great gift to have received! So fun that you and your husband are doing this together. I don't think I share or delegate well enough to do that! LOL. (He builds aircraft models across the table!) Jaime

Hi Folks, So earlier this week I posted about my thrifted dollhouse that I rehabbed for my girls for Christmas. What I forgot to mention was that as I was pulling off the wallpaper, I noticed that the house was already wired...so today my husband helped me maneuver the house onto it's back so I could take a closer look. Any ideas how I connect this to a power source? If there is a good tutorial out there, I would appreciate it if you could sent me in the right direction. You can check out the rest of the photos in my gallery here. Cheers! Jaime

Thanks everyone! It was fun. My oldest daughter's favorite show is flip or flop - so she is excited about decorating the house with me. Holly - thanks. I found an Arthur dollhouse in my parent's basement that I think I will steal in the new year for fun. Stickyfingers - having a strict deadline got me going -I couldn't put an unfinished house under the tree! I managed to get it done in a couple of weeks. There were a LOT of very late nights and a few glue gun burns. Jaime

Hi Everyone, After some hard work, I managed to get my refurbished thrifted dollhouse under the tree for Christmas. I had a lot of fun, and learned a lot - especially I learned that I have a lot to learn! This dollhouse is for my daughters to play with, so I did not go all out on finishes - and in fact I did leave it quite plain on purpose - so that their imaginations can take over. So a few things I learned - a hair dryer is an absolute must have tool - it helped me take apart the house and remove all the existing roof shingles and trim. It also allowed me to adjust the shingles when I flubbed something. I also learned that my favorite paint brushes are the IKEA kids paint brushes - they worked great and the short handles let you get into tight corners. I was able to mostly use paint leftover from other projects. I still have all of the baseboards and trim to install in the interior. I'll do that over the next few days. I also have a box of thrifted dollhouse furniture in various states of disrepair that I may turn my attention to. I'm particularly proud of the repair work I did on the porch roof - it was chewed and there were large chunks of the routered edge missing. I was able to patch the holes, and then sand it using a piece of flexible sandpaper wrapped around a yardstick. You can't really see the damage anymore. You can check out the rest of the photos in my gallery here.

I totally feel your pain being in Canada. It's not just the shipping, it's the crazy price and then the exchange! There are a few quite good Canadian stores, the shipping is about the same as US shipping, but without the US, UK or EU exchange it may be more reasonable. I think CDN and aus are close to par.

That is good advice Kathie - I may wait on the lights and add them as a STEM project with the girls when they are a bit older.

I haven't measured, but it seems to be 1:12, the doors, stairs etc seem to be the standard size. I'm 5'6 and it comes up to my waist at least. It's about 4 or 5 feet wide. I was thinking about adding lights, but haven't decided yet.

$5 Canadian dollars That is a great dollhouse - it looks to be about the same size, but the 1st and 3rd floor plans are reversed.

It looks pretty close - it is definitely as heavy as sin! I figured it was from a plan. I could barely move it to take pictures this afternoon! I love your yellow house - I'm thinking about colour scheme - I think I am going to leave it blue and white, but change the shingles to grey and maybe add some ivy and window boxes on the outside.

Thanks everyone. I was pretty excited with the find too. It just barely fit in the trunk of my wagon! Any recommendations as to what I should do first? My plan was to to try removing the wallpaper and flooring - maybe with fabric softener - and then clean it with a soft brush and soapy water. I want to repaint and I'd like to have grey shingles - I think I'll remove the current shingles that are damaged and replace with new. I don't know that I could match the shingles to repair. So in a nutshell - 1) remove wallpaper, 2) clean, 3) repair and glue, 3) repaint, re-paper. Jaime