Addams family house kit - help figuring out scale and accessibility, please

[LauraLark]

Hi everyone, this is my going to be my first dollhouse, yay (it's in the mail): https://www.etsy.com/listing/249527519/addams-family-house-model-kit?ref=shop_home_active_77

At first, I was just going to use it as kind of a practice house and only do the exterior but then I thought it'd be cool if you could see some of the interior through the windows which of course turned into thinking about fully furnishing it, which leads me to my question: the listing says it's about 13" tall, so am I correct in my math that at 5 floors it could be quarter scale if I declare the ceilings to be about 10' feet high if it were real-life size?

Also, any ideas about making it able to be viewed internally? My thoughts about options are:

1. Have one of the exterior walls hinge open (the front, ideally - maybe the section including the wall to the left of the tower and the tower itself on a left side hinge and then the right side of the house and front of the conservatory on a right side one?) and make the areas under the roof either inaccessible or lift off/hinge upwards. This would make getting to the back rooms a bit of a problem though, I guess I'd have to hinge other walls too.

2. Since it's proportionally a pretty deep house, hinge it so it opens right through the middle from side to side (like one of those kids dollhouses that you can close up and carry around) or maybe back to front so I can have more rooms accessible.

3. Not glue it down entirely but instead have each floor rest on top of the lower one so it can be lifted off (don't love this one but it seems like it might be the simplest).

4. Leave one of the walls off entirely, but I'd hate to do this.

(I think I'd do the conservatory and that little building off the back separately, maybe with lift off roofs, in addition to whatever option I use for the main house.)

I could also just have some of the doors and windows hinge open so you can have a better look inside, but I'd kind of like to be able play around with the furniture and maybe even some dolls if I can't talk myself out of it. (I don't even want to think about how I'm going to make decent quarter scale Addams family dolls, lol.)

Thank you

[LauraLark]

Ok, I'm getting cold feet about this fully-furnished business. I may compromise and only do the door and windows opening thing. Glue the visible furniture down, forget the dolls and call it a day. I'd still know it was a doll-less half-empty house though, sigh.

[Sable]

Since it is tab and slot it might be difficult to do independent floors since the tabs can be structural. Adding hinges to the walls is probably doable. Have fun decorating the exterior. Make it your focal point. I agree probably 1/4 scale.unless you do lighting it may be difficult to see your furniture and decor through those windows.

[Mid-life madness]

Welcome Laura,

The house is really detailed and looks like a lot of fun to assemble. I think you will have to open the kit and do a dry fit to see what scale it is and how you can make the interior accessible

You can always use magnets to make the walls semi-permanent.I like the hinge idea too.

Once you crack open the box, it will be easier to make you ideas come true.

There are some nice 1/4 scale furniture kits available if it turns out to be that scale.

[havanaholly]

Hi, Laura, I went googling for 1:48 Addams Family figures, but no luck.  Your kit looks like it might be one of the puzzle houses.  If you want a 1:12 size you could always add a couple of stories to the bottom of a Beacon Hill kit and modify a Greenhouse kit for the conservatory.

[LauraLark]

Thank you everyone! It just arrived today, so I'll open it up tomorrow and give it a look. And I hadn't thought about lighting, I'd definitely want it to have some kind of light in the interior. I'll have to see what the simplest way to do that would be.

[fov]

What about putting pictures inside the windows to give the illusion of an interior?

[havanaholly]

6 hours ago, fov said:

What about putting pictures inside the windows to give the illusion of an interior?

Then you wouldn't have to put in floors and walls, just a single lightbulb to light the interior.  What a cool idea for a night light!

[fov]

I'm not sure if a light would even be needed, since the pictures would be lit up from the light outside the house...? But Holly's post gave me another thought -- you could do pretty stained glass in all the windows and a bulb inside. (Now I kind of want to do one like this!)

[Sable]

The easiest thing to use for light are the battery operated led string lights available everywhere. Go with a soft glow for lovely ambient lighting. 

[LauraLark]

Ooh, great ideas!! I didn't get a chance to open it up today, really excited to now though :)

[stickyfingers]

I like Emily and Sable's suggestions. Simple stained glass lit from within.

 

 

[Susan18]

On 2/8/2018, 11:23:52, fov said:

What about putting pictures inside the windows to give the illusion of an interior?

This is what i was going to say, in lieu of furniture & dolls. You could print out pictures, make sure to add tabs on the bottoms of the pictures, & then glue them down so the figures were upright. The bonus would be that you could find pictures of the actual Addams family (TV, movies or even the original cartoons), & not have to drive yourself crazy looking for replicas!