Dutch dollhouse magazine (built house + furniture)

[ladymelissa]

So, my day started awesome: i don't believe in coincidence! Now i'm starting to focus again on dollhouse making and really am going for it, i now stumbled at the magazine shop, at the first two parts of a weekly Dutch magazine, were you will build piece by piece your own dollhouse and you receive nice furniture and other little accessories. Scale 1:12. The hous is more like a German chalet/cabin, but it's very cute. They say it will come in 100 parts! Part 1 was only 2 euros and i received already a porcelaine bath and some tiny accessories and part two was 5 euros and brought a heavy metal stove and some pans with it. The next parts will always be 10 euros. You can take a subscription or buy it a your local shop. If you take a subscription, you'll receive with certain parts, free lamps and the wiring system. I wonder if it is worth the money. Maybe you guys can check it out? That would be great. Of course it is in Dutch, but you can see the pics no? If you pay 11 euro/part, you can have the little veranda/porch to add to your house, but i think that is expensive (will be a 100 euros in the end for just the porch) and don't really think it is worth his while...I'm quite sure i will go for it.  

this is the site: http://www.uw-poppenhuis.nl/

this is a small vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jt_sozUFV8

 

[aggiemae]

Partworks is a company that sells "collect to build" magazines in the UK but there are others.

This sort of thing is popular in Europe and Asia.The magazines each come with some components of a finished house but the way the sub kits are set up it is impossible the complete the house unless you invest in the entire series. The first few are usually lower priced (like mail order HOM kits in the 1970's). Then, by the time you have/built the first 1/2 dozen or so kits and are hooked on it, the price per issue doubles or triples and through out the series some issues will  come in larger sized packaging  and cost more than others and, sometimes, optional "add ons".

If the Poppenhuis kits are 5. euros each, that's almost 500. euros, add  200. euros for delux and 100 more for add on kits and another 200. for international shipping (the EU doesn't subsidize their postal services)  and (a low estimate) total cost would be 1,000 euros. That's almost $1100. USD.

Though the furniture and building components are good quality, many of these houses are pre papered and pre painted,  so not really too creative. You could get lots and lots of nice things that you will love forever for that kind of money. So...unless you LOVE this house and everything in, choose something else.
 

An Italian company, DeAgostini, produce the house pictured below. The series had 110, sold every 2 weeks for a year. Each magazines comes with some components of the finished house and a piece of furniture to build. The way the sub kits are set up it is impossible the complete the house unless you invest in the entire series. There where several times where half of a french door came in one kit and the other half came in the next one.

 

I was given one in trade as partial payment for building another one about 8 years ago and still haven't gotten around to building it.  It turned out to be an exceptionally beautiful house but even with that and the undeniably high for the quality of the components, it was unbelievably expensive to buy. It also required lots of decorating and painting. So it was a creative endeavor but it was also  very time consuming build.

 

[ladymelissa]

wow, that's amazing!

i'm still in doubt to do it, i know it is expensive, but because the cost is spread, it would be 40 euros per month, which is better payable than to want to buy a house all at once....

so 4 parts per month, means 25 months, means 2 years before you have it all....oh, jeez, that's not nice....

[havanaholly]

2 hours ago, ladymelissa said:

wow, that's amazing!

i'm still in doubt to do it, i know it is expensive, but because the cost is spread, it would be 40 euros per month, which is better payable than to want to buy a house all at once....

so 4 parts per month, means 25 months, means 2 years before you have it all....oh, jeez, that's not nice....

And don't forget that 1100 euros price tag overall.  I can think of a lot of components and kits I could get for that...

[shannonc60]

It does look cute but I think it is too much. The furniture and accessories are available anywhere (I could give you some links to online stores in Europe, if that's where you are) and you'd build it for much cheaper and much quicker than two years. Even if you purchased a house kit from America or the UK.

[kathi17]

I agree with the others. You would have a choice of houses and furniture, and complete it sooner and for probably less money, (depending on the house), if you did it yourself.

The idea of a subscription sounds exciting, but you could get the same excitement by sending for a piece of furniture, wallpaper, etc. every month, and you would be controlling the price and getting exactly what you want.

[claireliontamer]

It does work out incredibly expensive overall. Why not save the €10 a week and buy things for the house in stages. It would be like having the subscription but you would save a lot of money. 

[aggiemae]

1 hour ago, claireliontamer said:

It does work out incredibly expensive overall. Why not save the €10 a week and buy things for the house in stages. It would be like having the subscription but you would save a lot of money. 

I second that plan!

About 10 years ago I got a complete kit for a front opening house townhouse (it even had porcelain  people) on CL in Australia for about 1/4 of the retail cost. A gift for my  the new DIL, The shipping cost to Israel was actually painful! It was her first house and though she is a fairly skilled now, and could build a much finer house  it suspect it is still her favorite. I can't remember the hane of the company. 

[parisbabe]

17 hours ago, ladymelissa said:

So, my day started awesome: i don't believe in coincidence! Now i'm starting to focus again on dollhouse making and really am going for it, i now stumbled at the magazine shop, at the first two parts of a weekly Dutch magazine, were you will build piece by piece your own dollhouse and you receive nice furniture and other little accessories. Scale 1:12. The hous is more like a German chalet/cabin, but it's very cute. They say it will come in 100 parts! Part 1 was only 2 euros and i received already a porcelaine bath and some tiny accessories and part two was 5 euros and brought a heavy metal stove and some pans with it. The next parts will always be 10 euros. You can take a subscription or buy it a your local shop. If you take a subscription, you'll receive with certain parts, free lamps and the wiring system. I wonder if it is worth the money. Maybe you guys can check it out? That would be great. Of course it is in Dutch, but you can see the pics no? If you pay 11 euro/part, you can have the little veranda/porch to add to your house, but i think that is expensive (will be a 100 euros in the end for just the porch) and don't really think it is worth his while...I'm quite sure i will go for it.  

this is the site: http://www.uw-poppenhuis.nl/

this is a small vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jt_sozUFV8

 

that almost looks like a lundby house

[ladymelissa]

Hmmm, now i'm starting to doubt, after all your guys advice.....what to do? I know it would be very expensive in the end, but it is a very cute house....I might consider just buying the parts with the furniture? Doubt, doubt doubt

[shannonc60]

If you love it, do it. It would be easier to buy this magazine as you will then have everything you need. But first check the price of buying the furniture individually. You could make a structure like that pretty easily, if you can work, or know someone who works, with tools. Or here's a similar one: http://www.bavarianfolkart.com/scotties_dollhausunfinished.htm

 

[kathi17]

1 hour ago, shannonc60 said:

If you love it, do it. It would be easier to buy this magazine as you will then have everything you need. But first check the price of buying the furniture individually. You could make a structure like that pretty easily, if you can work, or know someone who works, with tools. Or here's a similar one: http://www.bavarianfolkart.com/scotties_dollhausunfinished.htm

 

It's funny that you said that Shannon, because this is what I started to post this morning, but never posted it. It was still in the comment box this afternoon:

That would be a very easy house to build yourself. There are no difficult angles.

It wouldn't cost much at all to build, and could be done with foam core, plywood, or MDF, depending on the tools available!