It's official, it's decided

[rodentraiser]

OK, I am officially insane.

It's Lisa's fault, it really is. Well, OK, I have the ideas (so it's really my fault) and when I had this idea, I waited for Lisa to get that expression on her face and then sort of roll her eyes. I really didn't mind this time, because I was only throwing the idea up in the air and working on it for a mental exercise type of thing. I hadn't really planned to follow it through,

But Lisa's eyes didn't glaze over when I told her and she didn't roll them either. She actually said it was a great idea. So with that unrestrained enthusiasm, I decided to go for it.

Almost 2 years ago, I drove down to Portland and got an Elliott Bay dollhouse made by Victorian Times Miniatures. It was signed and numbered and I was ecstatic. Flash forward to a month ago. The EB is still sitting in my living room, on my couch, in pieces. I like the house, but I didn't love it. I had even flirted with selling it once or twice before deciding to keep it.

Then last month Lisa and I drove down to Portland and I got a Joseph Angel house made by the same company and also signed and numbered - and dated even! I have to admit, I was in love. I love this house. I hadn't realized how much I loved it. All the fancy railings, the best wallpaper I'd been saving for years - I finally had a house to put it in. I'd always been saving this stuff for THE house, and now, here it was. I wish I could meet a man I felt like this about. Wait, I have - unfortunately, he doesn't feel the same. Whatever.

Anyway, the problem remains in that I still have an Elliott Bay sitting on my couch. But now I am proud to announce that the problem has solved itself. Or, maybe the problem has multiplied itself to the point where I am creating a monster. Either way, the great idea is here:

I am going to join the two houses together!

The house will then have a large entry with a sitting area and a place to put a writing desk, a library, a reading room in the library, a living room, a sun room, a dining room, a kitchen, a laundry room, a pantry, an office, a den, an attic, a kitchenette, a sitting room/hobby room, 6 bedrooms, 5 bay windows, 4 bathrooms, 3 staircases, 3 porches, 2 towers, and a partridge in a pear tree. ♪♫

I do know that someone, somewhere, has joined two Joseph Angel houses together. And under ordinary circumstances I would never even consider this. The majority of change will be on the EB house, not so much, but the front part will just not be put on. Instead, I will add a sunroom there. I don't like doing this to obviously signed and dated houses, but I can see on Webshots, someone has already done an EB house in the exact way the original planner drew it out. So that one will always be there for posterity and it makes me feel a little better about ruining this one.

As to the JA house, very little will be changed on it. Mainly it will be the stairwells, since the house did not come with the original staircases and they had to be added. And perhaps, several more doorways are going to be added.

This is going to take a long, long time to do and while I will put some pics in my gallery when I can, I only have a couple of hours a week to work on it. Last week, Lisa helped me cut a new doorway which took what seemed like a couple of hours, so you can see where new pictures will not be upcoming every week. Add to that, the houses are to be placed side to side, and there is no way they can be safely carried when attached like that, so each house will have to be worked on separately. The total length when done, we figured out to be 82", give or take an inch. I currently live in a trailer that is only about 400 sq ft total and just 12 feet wide. Lisa asked where I will put this house when it is done and if I'm still living here. I asked when that had ever been important.

Anyway, wish me luck. I will be putting up some pictures in a gallery next Tuesday, I hope, and after that, it's in the lap of the gods. I hear they like crazy people.

[LLyn M.]

Wow!! 82"???? What a project and yes,Good Luck with that!! I'm wondering-if you

move...will you have to take off a door to get the house out""LOL!Also, if you have

cats I know where they will live! Send pics!!

[pin1056]

omg woman...you are crazy!!! and i love it!!!!! cant wait to see pics!!!

Wild ideas always turn out the best...she says with 2 back to back Beacon Hills

[Debra from Olde Cape Cod]

That sounds absolutely amazing!! Who needs a couch anyway?

[Terri]

Oh my gosh 82".....that's amazing. What a fabulous project. Can't wait to see pictures. Bouquets to you for undertaking such a huge project.

[Minis Over The Hill]

Take out your bed, put in a recliner, two for one. There's room for your 82" house! Seriously, the plans sound fabulous.

[KathieB]

Kelly, if anybody can pull it off with grace, creativity and excellent craftsmanship, it is you. You go, girl!

[sparklepuppies]

Oh my! That will be quite a house! Looking forward to seeing it! And good luck!!

[havanaholly]

Think of all the room you'll have for the servants' quarters!

[janet]

Fabulous!

No doll house was ever too big!

[Lisa_F]

It's Lisa's fault, it really is. Well, OK, I have the ideas (so it's really my fault) and when I had this idea, I waited for Lisa to get that expression on her face and then sort of roll her eyes. I really didn't mind this time, because I was only throwing the idea up in the air and working on it for a mental exercise type of thing. I hadn't really planned to follow it through, But Lisa's eyes didn't glaze over when I told her and she didn't roll them either. She actually said it was a great idea.

Trust me, she didn't need a whole lot of convincing!

Actually, I love large dollhouses with lots of rooms & the way Kelly has this one planned out - it'll have a bit of everything - every room one could possibly need. And it will be huge!!! She's gonna need a 96" table to set it on - so she can landscape around it (I already found those online and for a good price to and she can get one locally so no shipping)! I think it will be an amazing house!

The house won't have any problem fitting through regular doorways - and being transported via a van or large SUV - she plans to leave the house in two sections to make it easier to move about. It will be a really long house from front to back - but depth wise it won't have any problem getting through real life doors.

I'm anxious to see it all come together & see the wallpapering, etc. begin! I think it will be the house to end all houses! I suggested she start a blog to record the adventure. Are you listening Kelly? A blog would be a good thing

[KathieB]

Yes, Kelly, definitely a blog is in order.

Ten years? You think that will be enough?

[rodentraiser]

Yes, I was going to start a blog, this week actually, but something else came up. Our local newspaper is online and those of us who read it like that can make comments to the stories.

I don't know why, but I made a rather personal comment to a story and was then asked about writing something about readjusting after being homeless. I did, and instead of dashing off a few lines, I ended up practically writing a book and it took me a couple of hours, and then I needed a few days to get over it. I was just asked to repeat it on my paranormal forum, so it's been a rather emotional week.

So now I have to get the bricks and sticks of the blog together (I am already registered somewhere with a blog - I will have to look for it again because I've never done anything with it yet), but posts there will be few and far between, I am afraid, and I still need to take pictures of Wild Rose, as the big house will be called.

And yes, the original width will not be changed - my door will fit 24" wide and neither house is wider than that. What will be very interesting though, is that the original JA house stands 53" tall with its tower as is - and that tower starts from the 2nd floor. The other tower - the one that came with the EB house - is going to start on the 3rd floor, against the roof. So my guess is, since the floors are 10" high, the total height of the house will be 63", which is ...my height. And in my trailer, the real ceilings are only about 6 1/2 feet. Looks like I'm going to have to buy a house for the dollhouse.

Anyway, thanks for your support, everyone. I am certainly going to need it and so will Lisa, as she's the one who has to hear me grumble and groan while working on the house every week.

Oh, Holly, you had to remind me of servants' quarters! I guess those will have to be in the basement..........

Actually, I have one bedroom that could be used for servants' quarters. As you can guess, the house being so long, rooms will have to be walked through. On the second floor there are 5 bedrooms alone and in reality, you shouldn't be able to walk through any of them. Well, in the EB part of the house, I am sticking a staircase between the kitchen and the dining room. That staircase goes up to two bedrooms - in other words, they have a private entrance from the kitchen. I think I can make that the servants' rooms. It will be like those old houses that used to have rooms with private entrances now converted over. There really will be a way to walk through the 2nd floor though. I am backing one of those bedrooms in the EB house up with a bathroom which will be a Jack and Jill bathroom - this bathroom connects to a bedroom in the JA house as well, which then itself opens up to the hallway on the 2nd floor which leads past another bedroom to the staircase in the JA side of the house. It'll be clearer when I finally get pictures.

This weekend will really tell the tale - I have to cut the bases so they will go together with one wall, yet still have support for the 2nd and 3rd floors of both houses. Yo.......

[rodentraiser]

She's gonna need a 96" table to set it on - so she can landscape around it (I already found those online and for a good price to and she can get one locally so no shipping)!

See what an enabler she is!

[dollhouse lady]

kelly

wow i thought the only woman i know who told me it took 10 years to wire the nob hill dollhouse i thought well , now i am so happy for you lol i love dollhouse i have four and even though i can not bulid a big one i will make it my home and yes we have throw things out for our dollhouses lol greeaaaaaat love it to pieces . this is why i love this site it is the only place that understand my writing lol and understand the love of a dollhouse and the people who love them YEE HAW

hugs jane this is so great i can not wait to see the pcitures !!!! :oD great find and great luck

[Jo Med]

Wow Kelly what a fabulous project.

Its sure to take you years to complete but whats a few years in doll house terms. I love big houses (I'd love a big RL house too to put them all in) You are really going to enjoy this one as its what you really want and not what soem designer says you have to have.

Good luck to you with it.

[havanaholly]

Kelly, houses that huge had to have a couple of live-in servants to keep them in order. The cook & chief housemaid would be in the basement with the l, scullery, kitchen & pantry; the butler & chambermaid would have cots and washstands somewhere off their masters' rooms, and the 'tweenies would bed down in the attic. Of course, the more recent the setting for your house, the fewer servants there'd be AND possibly the larger the family. My grandmother's best friend married into a family with tons of money and by the time I used to go visit there was a maid that came in a couple of times a week to clean and the house had the friend's brother living in one of the basement bedrooms, her sister & hubby, a family friend and my grandparents (and the friend) had some of the bedrooms on the second floor and we grandkids had two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. In addition to the grand staircase from the (huge) foyer to the second floor there was an unbelievably narrow servants' stair that started across from the pantry, next to the kitchen and went all the way to the third floor; to access the basement we went outside from the kitchen. 'Way, 'way back when they had a chauffeur he & his wife (their cook at the time, I believe) lived in the apartment over the three-car garage out back, but by the time I last visited and was old enough to notice, it was long empty. Later on the neighborhood was bought up by Western Reserve and the old mansions that were still usable became frat houses. By the '60s the old houses, ragged out by the students, were torn down.

[Brezavaqt]

VERY IMPRESSIVE Kelly!! I seem to have a thing for LARGE houses!! You all know my motto: "If you can't have it in real life, why not have it in miniature?" I have quite a few manions I'm waiting to complete!! :-)

[Silvyr]

...and a partridge in a pear tree. ♪♫

I'm going to hold you true to that one ;)

Really though, I'd love to see build pictures; it sounds like it's going to be an incredible and fantastic house, and I'm sure all the detail that will go into everything will be awesome!

[rodentraiser]

Kelly, houses that huge had to have a couple of live-in servants to keep them in order. The cook & chief housemaid would be in the basement with the l, scullery, kitchen & pantry; the butler & chambermaid would have cots and washstands somewhere off their masters' rooms, and the 'tweenies would bed down in the attic. Of course, the more recent the setting for your house, the fewer servants there'd be AND possibly the larger the family. My grandmother's best friend married into a family with tons of money and by the time I used to go visit there was a maid that came in a couple of times a week to clean and the house had the friend's brother living in one of the basement bedrooms, her sister & hubby, a family friend and my grandparents (and the friend) had some of the bedrooms on the second floor and we grandkids had two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. In addition to the grand staircase from the (huge) foyer to the second floor there was an unbelievably narrow servants' stair that started across from the pantry, next to the kitchen and went all the way to the third floor; to access the basement we went outside from the kitchen. 'Way, 'way back when they had a chauffeur he & his wife (their cook at the time, I believe) lived in the apartment over the three-car garage out back, but by the time I last visited and was old enough to notice, it was long empty. Later on the neighborhood was bought up by Western Reserve and the old mansions that were still usable became frat houses. By the '60s the old houses, ragged out by the students, were torn down.

Actually, I was going to have that house and be the only one living there! ;) I decided the person living there would be a rich, successful writer and all the help would come in by the day.

Although I was leaning towards the large family. I have a small room which could be a child's room, two master bedrooms, one of which could be a guest bedroom or could be a teen's room, maybe a room for one servant, a baby's room off the 2nd floor master (which was going to be a sitting room or a hobby room), and then two more rooms which could hold three more kids. It would give me a chance to put things like toys and stuff in the bedrooms. And I was thinking of an in-law room too.

One day I would like a basement. There are still rooms that I don't have in the house that I would like to - a mouse room, a dog room, a wine cellar, stuff like that. But I still am mainly thinking that I would like to live in that big house by myself.

The house will be a "modern" house that has been brought up to date over the years. Computer and TVs are a must.

[rodentraiser]

Or, I could be a single person living there with lots of visiting all-age relatives. A pool is a must too.

[CheckMouse]

Sounds like a lot of fun, Kelly -- I've got to get up there and see it in person! I just finished my Spring Fling, so maybe I can breathe again! I like the plans you are making. What newspaper are you talking about -- the Bremerton Sun? Or one of the smaller ones?

[rodentraiser]

It was for the Bremerton Sun. Sally Santana did a column titled "Where is your home?" and it was about homelessness in the area. Since the commentors were being unusually supportive, I got a little personal in my comment and was then contacted by Sally to email her something about readjusting to permanent housing again after being homeless. She wants to use parts of the email in a newsletter and I said no problem. And I may also be volunteering to do something with the newsletter or the homeless - I asked if there was anything I could help with.

And out of the blue yesterday, I was contacted by a lady who wants to start a ghost hunting group in Silverdale. We had out 1st meeting tonight - I just got home an hour ago - and we will do an investigation tomorrow night. Which explains why I haven't had time to think of a blog for the dollhouse yet, let alone write one up. But I'm hoping to get that done over the weekend (after I finish cleaning again because my landlord is supposed to be coming over tomorrow afternoon), so when I finally get some pictures of the house on Monday, I can post the whole thing and not do it in drips and drabs.

I'm also supposed to be looking for a job. But who the hell has time for a job with all this going on? ;)