Blue Morning Glory

There were two dollhouse shows per year in Atlanta. The Tom Bishop Show in spring 2020 was canceled. The fall 2020 show would have been held by the Atlanta Miniatures Society, which has some loose association with NAME. Is the Fall 2020 Atlanta Show happening? The website appears to be abandoned.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Rolife-DIY-Dollhouse-Furniture-Miniature-Shop-House-Model-Toy-for-Teens-Adult/401771654666?hash=item5d8b74ee0a:g:0EQAAOSwGgdcixBG i was looking at the kit contents, and found a paper printout to make a tiny book with pages. Last year, I made a miniature book using public domain photos from an old botanical book. The kit used photos from the same public domain book! Is my "original" book, which took hours to design, really better than just buying one in a kit?

Love the chair, too. Notice how the seat is carved. Low quality chairs would have just left the seat flat.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Rolife-DIY-Dollhouse-Furniture-Miniature-Shop-House-Model-Toy-for-Teens-Adult/401771654666?hash=item5d8b74ee0a:g:0EQAAOSwGgdcixBG I received this as a Christmas present! The giver knew that I mostly make my own high end items from raw materials, but she took a chance and bought it on sale from a different website. I haven't assembled it yet, but I have opened the box, and I think it might be fun to do a kit for a change. It has the cutest tiny metal iron, an already assembled dress form, fabric with miniature prints, laser cut wood, and so many, many accessories and details! I like making dollhouse stuff from raw materials, but not having a project without scrounging for the perfect fabric, tiny metal pieces, etc. might be fun! I plan on making a special, custom made 1:24 scale house using a photo of an old family house as my guide in the near future. I dreaded decorating the interior, and was mostly focusing on the exterior of the house. I was tempted to just leave the interior empty, until I found these on ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-24-DIY-Dollhouse-Miniature-Kit-With-Furniture-Kitchen-Life-Scene-Ornament/202663964063?hash=item2f2fb6ad9f:g:NEsAAOSw9ZtcxOHv The company sells several different rooms for $5.35, free shipping. They are pretty basic, but it is tempting to buy a few and kit bash them for my custom designed house.

"The dollhouse of death that changed forensic science" by Vox. It might surprise you to know that the origins of Crime Scene Investigations (CSI, NCIS, etc.) was Francis Glassner Lee, referred to as the "mother of CSI". She used dollhouses as a very morbid training tool for police recruits.

I have been staring at the picture, and making some careful guesses about dimensions. I started by looking up dimensions for anything in the picture that had a relatively standard size, such as doors. After guessing a door width, I would then use the door as a ruler to measure the wall next to it. Many tedious days later, I decided that the house was 36 feet wide. I should have just listened to Kells! The obvious choice is that I will make the dollhouse 1:24 scale to be displayed near the framed print. Nearly everything, including the house, furniture, and accessories will all be custom made by me, since it is difficult to buy quality items, instead of plastic toys, in this scale. I own a few small items that used to live in the full sized house. Those items will be recreated for the dollhouse. The footprint of the 1:24 dollhouse will be about 18 x 18 inches. See drawing below. Displayed on a 30 inch wide, 20 inch deep display area, there is plenty of room left to add landscaping and a shed that was near the house in the print (not shown in photo). The dollhouse will have thirteen rooms. The first floor will have a kitchen (added out back), dining, main living room, bath, office on the front left (or a bedroom for granny who can no longer climb the stairs), and a tiny, somewhat public parlor just big enough for a love seat and the staircase entry. The second floor will have a master with a big full/queen bed, two tiny kids rooms or nurseries for the youngest family members, a bath, and a multi-purpose living/playroom. I will add dormers to the back of the roof, giving me two large attic rooms, plus attic storage filled with fun steamer trunks. One of the big rooms will be a boy's room with two bookcase bunks partially tucked into the low front eaves, and the other will be a sewing room (after some of the kids have moved out). My staircase issues have been resolved, and yes, it is up to building codes. The dollhouse might be lighted. I am still troubled by how to have access to the interior. I am considering having the attic level, and the second floor, removable, so that you can see the interior rooms, and not disturb the landscaping or have to move the entire house off the shelf to see into the back. As you can see, this is a massive project that will take a very, very long time to finish! As a later project, I intend to make large apartment sized room boxes, uniformly about eleven inches deep, for my collection of 1:12 items. It is just too much fun to trade, buy, and collect those common scale items! They could be displayed on any standard depth bookcase shelf, and eventually, with the addition of hallway room boxes, might become an entire apartment building. I still get a 1:12 dollhouse, but each room box would be its own efficiency apartment, or the front rooms of a larger, deeper, implied apartment. The best part of this is that I could have residents move in and out of the apartments, as my skills increased or my interests changed. Each apartment would have its own personality. I could have one very modern apartment occupied by a messy young man next to a elderly cat lady living in an apartment full of antiques. I could have a young couple living an apartment full of hand-me-down furniture (poor quality, sentimental stuff that I just can't bring myself to donate). If I downsize, I would be selling/donating one big room box that can fit on anyone's unused bookcase shelf, instead of a huge stand alone mansion. If I tire of this hobby before filling up and entire apartment high rise, I have one nice finished room box, instead of one giant partially finished house. This future project could be be completed in bite sized pieces.

Matboard is a wonderful material! The downside is that is it more prone to bending or water damage. I would not hesitate to use it for small scale houses or 1:12 furniture and small interior walls. The methods that you would use to cut, sand or paint it are similar to basswood. It is easier to paint than wood, since you don't need a primer. If you have one of the newer Cricut machines, it can cut matboard up to about 1/16 inches thick!

I am working on drawings of the interior floor plans. The dollhouse might have as many as thirteen rooms with approximately five bedrooms and two baths. As in a actual house of that era, some of the rooms will be quite small. The staircases are causing many problems. I am exploring the idea of using the display space simply as a storage space. Close the dollhouse, and display it as a lighted exterior house on that spot. It will not open, but you can peek inside the lighted windows. Whenever I want to "play" with the house, take it down, put it on a big table, and open it up. Thank you for the museum wax suggestion. I may make extra sheets of grass covered base pieces (stored underneath the dollhouse while on the shelf, or behind my full sized bookcase) to cover the entire table. My smaller 1:12 planned projects include sheds and a small, one room artist studio that would go well beside the house when displayed on the table, but could be stored in various other locations. As for opening the dollhouse, someone suggested magnets. I am considering four magnetic removable panels (or perhaps hinges) on the front "A", the back "A", the back flat, and the right side "A". The dollhouse will fit too tightly in the space to use a turn table. First, I need to get the interior drawings done. The Artply kit will be discarded or just used as scrap lumber. I intend to use up my favorite 1:12 pieces, then return to 1:48 scale houses. This is a massive project. I will gradually post updates and photos, but be patient. This is a multi-year project!

Photos of the Artply Allison can be seen on ebay. It is not similar to the Greenleaf Pierce. The painting and the Allison are both "L" shaped, two story farm houses with big front porches. I could ditch the Allison, and just build the house from raw lumber. The Allison is quite small, only 22 inches wide and 13 inches deep, with four fairly large rooms. I would need to add a 7 inch deep room to the front, and a 9 inch room to the largest "L" branch which travels along the width. That would give me 8 rooms, four on each floor: an 11x13 inch room, a 7x11 inch room, a 11x10 inch room, and a 9x10 inch room. From those rooms, I would need to steal space for a staircase, hallway, and bathrooms. Would the rooms be big enough for furniture? Maybe, I need to draw this out on paper, and try putting some furniture on it. While I like the idea of a front opening house, there might not be room to open the doors. This house would be sitting on a short bookcase sandwiched between two tall bookcases.There are walls on either side of the 32 inch width. The porches would make front doors difficult, too. Perhaps, I could just let it live in that space with an open back, and bring it out onto a table occasionally to be admired. I am also intrigued by the idea of having a multi-layer dollhouse with the first, second, and attic levels being removable. I could downsize to 1:24 scale and make the whole dollhouse larger with front or back access and plenty of landscaping, but I would have to start over collecting furniture in a different scale. Perhaps, since I really am guessing about the inside of the original house, I should make it in 1:48 scale (exterior only) for sentimentality, and assemble the Allison (as intended), another prefab kit, or room boxes for my homeless 1:12 furniture collection. I am trying to post the farmhouse photo again.

There are no rules for making dollhouses. In general, cardboard or paper dollhouses will be less durable than wood dollhouses. They are more likely to warp, and high humidity can cause them serious harm. I tend to make large projects from wood, but often use mat board for decorative items, or for 1:48 scale dollhouses. Mat board is used by artists to surround pictures in frames, and is very inexpensive to buy in big poster sized sheets from an artist supply store or section. It is easier to cut than wood. Unlike corrugated cardboard, it is solid, not hollow inside. Painting or vanishing cardboard will help it resist humidity.

I have decided that instead of having a dusty collection of mediocre dollhouses, that I will have one grand and glorious, museum worthy, dollhouse. There will be a few smaller projects, such as room boxes or smaller scale houses sitting around, but, my home will only have one giant, space gobbling full size 1:12 house. It might take a decade to finish, but, is a dollhouse ever really finished? This is my inspiration! Below is a photograph of an artist's print. The print is hanging on my wall near the proposed location of the finished dollhouse. It is a family home of some small fame, and is replicated in this print. It even had a brief cameo in a movie! The home was occupied and maintained until the 1980s, then it slowly deteriorated, and was eventually was torn down. This is the only picture that I have found. The older family members have not been able to provide more details, and I never visited the house. My display space for this house is 32 inches wide, 21.5 inches deep, and 36 inches tall. These measurements must include walkways, porch, and shrubbery, etc. I have an Artply kit called "Allison", model no. 77, which was purchased for about $15 at an auction, and a friend found a wiring kit at a yard sale for me. I can bash the kit, or just build the house with new lumber. I am not new to making dollhouses, so kit bashing and making houses from raw lumber does not frighten me. I would like to make this dollhouse as large as possible, within the allotted display space, with many rooms and lots of realism. So, where to start? Should I use the Allison kit? What is the interior floor plan? How will I access the interior? What decade(s) should the interior represent?

Love that bricklayer website calculator! This is how you use it: Notice at the top there is a blue block that says "Spiral Stairs Metric". Click on the box right below it that says "Imperial". This will change the measurements from metric to feet/inches. Fill in the blocks to suit your needs. Total rise is how high your room box is from the floor to the ceiling. Ideal rise is the height of each step, or how high your doll will have to step up on each step of the stairs. Inside radius is the radius (one-half of the diameter) of your vertical staircase pole. Tread length is the length of a step, measured from pole to outer edge. Rotation is hard to explain. If you start at the bottom rung, and make a complete circle as you ascend, this number would be 360 degrees. If you only go around a half circle by the time you reach the top, rotation would be 180 degrees. If you have landings, make a landing pattern using 2-3 steps merged into a single larger step/landing. You will then need to add the extra (missing) steps to the top to keep the correct height. For example: If your landing is three steps wide, you will need to add and extra two steps to the top of the stairs to reach the ceiling. If you switch to Imperial the default numbers of a ceiling height of eight feet, four inches, and an individual step height of six inches is a good working estimate for a dollhouse staircase. Of course, you must divide by 12 to get 1:12 scale measurements. The program generates a pattern that you can use to cut the steps. Just resize and print, or use the measurements to hand draw a pattern.

I love it, but 33 inches wide? Where could the finished house be displayed?

I have been working in quarter scale lately. I chose the scale because the houses don't take up so much space in my house, and because the scale overlapped well with the train hobbyists. I can go to dollhouse shows AND train shows to hunt for supplies! 1:48 Quarter Scale is about the same scale as O scale in the model train world. In some locations O scale is 1:43, but they both blend well. O scale is the scale that the big, older model trains used in the 1930s, and it is having a bit of a revival lately. HO stands for half of O scale, and is about 1:87. The O scale train houses often lack quality, and are made from cheap plastic. The real treasures can be found in the landscaping supplies. Ground powdered greenery and moss is cheap, and great for filling in a few bare spots around shrubbery, in the base of flower pots, or as shrubbery and vines in the smaller scales.

Such a beautiful house on your dining room table! I often see estate sales full of cherished family memories. Sometimes, it is very sad when a family tries to keep everything. In trying to keep the memories alive, they would "save" items by storing them poorly, stashing them in attics, barns, and basements. Decades later, the mice/bugs, water/mold, and heat/cold would have destroyed them. I applaud your decision to let go of some memories so that others can enjoy them. It is difficult to let go, but it is so much better to just keep a few pampered and beautifully displayed items that you will make you smile every time that you walk through the room, instead of an attic full of stuff that is never seen and poorly maintained. I too am considering moving into room boxes, furniture groupings on shelves, and the smaller scales. A dozen 1:48 dollhouses can fit on one bookcase the size of a large 1:12 mansion. Small pieces or groupings would be easier to move out of my house at a later date. As my abilities improve, I increasingly value quality over quantity, and I like to clear out the lower quality items in my collection. Unlike one big dollhouse, lots of small dollhouses or room boxes are easier to re-home.