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My Heritage dollhouse is finally finished!!


Mordana

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I posted a few months back about finding my old partially built Heritage dollhouse and deciding to finish building it to give to my best friend's daughter for Christmas.  Well, it turned out more of a late Christmas/New Year's gift, but I finished it, and thought I'd share some photos.  I started building it when i was in high school, 22 years ago.  It went into my mom's closet after that, and I finally decided to finish it and give it to a little girl who I love dearly.  I learned a lot of lessons from this, and you can see some pretty glaring mistakes, which i wouldn't live with if I was keeping it, but my friend's little girl never noticed them.  i gave her almost all the furniture I had as well (i'll get other better stuff later for my next house).  I have already purchased and received my next house (because now i'm addicted), which is a Rosedale.  I'm gonna take my time on that one since I plan on keeping it.  But the reward of seeing this girl's mouth agape when she first saw it, and the absolute joy of watching her play and listening to her dolls talking to each other about their new house was worth every second I spent making it.  (However, this house was HARD to put together, and I wouldn't build this one again).  More pics are in my gallery.

Here's the whole thing, finished.  We made a board for it to landscape, but it wouldn't fit through my door, so we finished that part up once we took it to her house.

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Side view.  It really is a beautiful house.  But half the pieces didn't fit right, and I had to use my saw and dremel tools to fix them before assembly.  I now remember why i stopped working on it all those years ago.  :/   Some of the windows still open though, so that's cool.

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I left the attic unfinished, because it's an attic, and so she can fix it up to her liking later on.  This was before I took it to her, and I placed the furniture how I would like it.  She set it up in her own way, but i couldn't resist "playing" with it first. :)  I didn't add molding up near the ceilings, which would have made it look nicer, but I was feeling lazy and tired, and frankly she'll never notice it.

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I hate the staircase because it blocks everything, but that was done over 20 years ago, and i didn't have the nerve to try to rip it out.  Kitbashing would never have occurred to my 17-year-old self back then. Now, that would have been the first thing to go.  I found it impossible to paint/stain the poles, or fix the damage cause by a really fat cat camping out upstairs and pushing the railings.  So I don't like it, but she LOVED the stairs, and all her dollies go up the stairs one by one, so I guess it's all good.

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On the baseboard.  Her mom did most of it, cutting the board and painting it and making that raised garden.  I did the flagstone path with egg cartons and made the bushes and topiary from styrofoam and spanish moss.  We affixed the whole thing to a lazy susan and secured it to a rolling cart, which I don't have pics of, but it came out really well.  Now she can play with it and turn the house around without fear of wrecking anything.

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She wasted no time getting all her dolls out to party in the new house.  She loves the porch swing. :) 

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i posted many more pics in my gallery if you'd like to see them.  

 

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1 hour ago, minilover62 said:

Congrats! it looks very beautiful, your girls are going to have a blast at their new house!!

Holly, I loved your PITA remark! you're soooo right! LOL!

I've built the San Franciscan and the Cambridge and I still have a Newburg in the box; am I a glutton for punishment?

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It's a beautiful house and obviously so much appreciated. And who knows? Maybe in another 20 years, you and the not-so-little-anymore girl will be rehabbing it into something magnificent! (This is of course after you've built one every year between now and then because you are now addicted!)

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28 minutes ago, shannonc60 said:

It's a beautiful house and obviously so much appreciated. And who knows? Maybe in another 20 years, you and the not-so-little-anymore girl will be rehabbing it into something magnificent! (This is of course after you've built one every year between now and then because you are now addicted!)

I ought to have had plenty of practice by then! :)

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29 minutes ago, parisbabe said:

I built the Newburg MANY years ago and they are a PITA

Thanks for the warning. :)  i had this on my list of possible future products since they turn up on ebay every now and then.  Maybe i'll just cross that one off...

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2 hours ago, Mordana said:

Thanks for the warning. :)  i had this on my list of possible future products since they turn up on ebay every now and then.  Maybe i'll just cross that one off...

They are a PITA but oh so worth it IMO...It depends on how much patients you have

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16 minutes ago, parisbabe said:

They are a PITA but oh so worth it IMO...It depends on how much patients you have

I've built two San Frans and one Linfield, so either I love punishing myself, or they really are worth it! Since I'm glad I have them, I guess they must be worth it!!!

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4 hours ago, ladymelissa said:

What a dreamhouse! She is a very lucky girl to receive such a gift! I wished when i was little, someone would give something like that to me....:drool2:

So did I. That's why I built a San Fran for my granddaughter. It was just the kind of house I would have loved as a child!

I expect that this little girl will love the house forever, and when she gets older, she'll want to turn it into a showpiece. Now that my granddaughter is 11, she is wanting beautiful things for hers, and is starting to make miniatures for it as well. Beautiful dollhouses can be a gift that lasts a lifetime!

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