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Brick and Mortar miniature shops?


AndreaJane

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Is there a list/directory (either here in the forums somewhere or online elsewhere) of actual brick and mortar miniature shops?  I'd love to see if there are any nearby.  I've done a few basic google searches and came up short.   

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Some of the miniature magazines used to publish directories of brick & mortar stores, but the stores, like most of the magazines, have either gone online or gone the way of the dodo.

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The Dollhouses, Trains and More is awesome (at least for someone who doesn't have access to anything much at all) and there is also Shellie's Minis in San Carlos. She has a good selection of things, but probably more of the collector things - but very beautiful stuff.

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3 hours ago, Debsrand56 said:

Andrea

Not sure where you are in Northern California.  There is  a place called Dollhouses, Trains & More in Novato, and the Elegant Dollhouse in Sacramento.

 

3 hours ago, havanaholly said:

Some of the miniature magazines used to publish directories of brick & mortar stores, but the stores, like most of the magazines, have either gone online or gone the way of the dodo.

 

2 hours ago, Mid-life madness said:

There is one in Ventura county that is suppose to be excellent. I recently went to My Dollhouse in Orange county and they recommended the one in

Ventura . Perhaps a Day trip weekend getaway for you???

 

1 hour ago, shannonc60 said:

The Dollhouses, Trains and More is awesome (at least for someone who doesn't have access to anything much at all) and there is also Shellie's Minis in San Carlos. She has a good selection of things, but probably more of the collector things - but very beautiful stuff.

I'm in the bay area so Novato, San Carlos and even Sacramento are totally doable.  Ventura would be a bit of a drive but if I head south....

It's too bad online shopping has been to the detriment of regular old stores.  I love the convenience of online shopping but there is nothing like seeing and touching something in person.  

Thanks for the recommendations. 

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6 hours ago, AndreaJane said:

...It's too bad online shopping has been to the detriment of regular old stores.  I love the convenience of online shopping but there is nothing like seeing and touching something in person...

That's why I wound up making everything.

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We have a great bricks and mortar shop here in Cocoa,Fl. I have been in the store several times before. However now I have decided to build I started looking at prices.

Just previous to this I had been on the internet, found a U.K. seller selling branded goods with the offer of Spend $50 and they would ship free to the U.S. These prices were a third less and included shipping. So how do these stores compete? 

Most of today's kids can not see past the playstation. So I would think that the sale of Doll houses and what goes in them has seen a decline. However I will use my local store when I can, but like most think it will go the way of the Dodo. 

The internet is killing the highstreet. Good or Bad? only time will tell.

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8 hours ago, AndreaJane said:

I'm in the bay area so Novato, San Carlos and even Sacramento are totally doable

So definitely check out Dollhouses, Trains and More.  It is huge!  They have houses, furniture, accessories, lumber, wallpaper; they even have a nice (though small) half scale section. :-)  They open at 10:00 a.m. on Sundays.  That's when we usually make our pilgrimage, to avoid as much traffic as possible.  

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35 minutes ago, Ian1357 said:

We have a great bricks and mortar shop here in Cocoa,Fl. I have been in the store several times before. However now I have decided to build I started looking at prices.

Just previous to this I had been on the internet, found a U.K. seller selling branded goods with the offer of Spend $50 and they would ship free to the U.S. These prices were a third less and included shipping. So how do these stores compete? 

Most of today's kids can not see past the playstation. So I would think that the sale of Doll houses and what goes in them has seen a decline. However I will use my local store when I can, but like most think it will go the way of the Dodo. 

The internet is killing the highstreet. Good or Bad? only time will tell.

I think what helps the Cocoa store is its location. All of those massive cruise ships stop there for the day and if you don't want to sit on a bus and head to Disney all day, it's a pleasure walking through the Cocoa village perusing the shops. And The Toy Box is a pleasant surprise amongst the other shops.

Ian, have you been to Ron's in Orlando?  Also, keep in mind, adult builders and collectors are probably the largest consumer of wooden dollhouses and their accessories. Parents of smaller children are mostly drawn to the plastic houses available at ToysRUs. Very few children attend Dollhouse and miniature shows.

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Hi Sable

Yes the cruise ships do bring a lot of people in. Ron's is on my list. But I will give them a ring, I read somewhere they may be closing, hope not. 

Yes my comment about the kids, after I posted I got to thinking like you, building and furnishing these miniature black holes ( i have not started yet...LoL) is not something they can afford.

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2 minutes ago, havanaholly said:

Ian, Ron & Richard are planning to retire ssoon, and if no one offers to buy the store and keep it going, it will indeed be gone so if you're going to go, DO IT!

They have too much inventory to just walk away from it. It's all speculation, I saw Ron two weeks ago at our show and there was no mention of retirement. I don't think they are actively looking for a buyer, either. Just speculation and rumor. 

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I think there will always be a place for a store of any kind. I can't see internet shopping taking over entirely. I also think it's swings and roundabouts - minis might be less popular now but 1:48 seems to be getting bigger by the day, and probably in the future, it will gain popularity again.

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Maybe we should do a sticky topic that people can add to. Maybe listing by city name so people can search their city name (large metro area, not suburbs, to many variations to search) and all the listings for that area (if any) would come up.

Just a thought.

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  • 4 weeks later...

This website has a listing of stores by state and country. They also have a directory of clubs, but I'm not sure how accurate any of it is. I've tried multiple times over the past year to update our club's contact info and have had no response with any of the methods. Still, the info is worth a try.

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Alas, that site is woefully out of date!  I checked their listings for FL and most of the stores on there are no more; Raggedy D's in Gainesville and Haslam's in Sarasota have been gone for at least 15 years.

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I'm going to Reno this summer and since I live in the dollhouse dead zone of Utah I looked up possible Reno mini shops, I had visited one there some years ago. I was so disappointed to see that it doesn't look like there are any dollhouse shops left in Reno. 

My sister goes regularly to the shop in Ventura and loves it. 

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Wow, that's even worse than I thought! They did manage to remove the Kansas City shop that closed down a few years ago but I see that the Duluth, MN shop I visited has the old address (that cost us a bunch of time, parking costs, & a lot of physical pain & bother) and there's one in Birmingham, AL that's not listed at all. This site is the reason I knew that a local miniature club existed but the contact info didn't go to the person listed at all. I'm just glad that I managed to get a hold of the arts person at the State Fair and that she decided to give me a club member's info.

But yeah, caveat emptor: look the places up before going, check to see if there's a current FB page, call, email, do something to make sure they exist and double check the address.

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