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What would be your dream dollhouse?


Kells

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If you could snap your fingers - or at least if money and space were no object - what would be your dream dollhouse project? I have three, none of which are ever gonna happen. For me, in no particular order . . .

Gull Cottage from the 1947 movie "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir." I've always thought it just the most charming house, inside and out! Lots of pics on this link:

https://hookedonhouses.net/2011/09/12/gull-cottage-ghost-and-mrs-muir/

My childhood home in Colorado. Not that I have the best memories of growing up there, god knows, but I have always loved the house. First pic below, the red brick with the sandstone trim.

The last one is the house we lived in for a few years in Santa Fe after my mother finally got rid of my awful father. Some of the happiest memories of my life were in this house and in Santa Fe itself. I feel like my life really began here and everything before it was just a bad dream, lol. It's not a grand home but was just so warm, inviting, and homey. My mom also really came into her own here, and we both sort of transformed into different people. If I ever won the lottery . . .

Home.jpg

Santa Fe Home.jpg

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What a beautiful home in Santa Fe - I lived in NM (south east) for 8 years, had a lovely white Adobe that was there before the neighborhood, so I am always looking and buying adobe homes 

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Oh I love that Holly!  

Mine would be re-creating the house that I grew up in.  Of course it didn't look this good when we lived there!  LOL  It's now a vacation rental home.

 

Brackbill House.jpg

Brackbill House side.jpg

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I also thought that I'd always wanted the Hofco Americana....until I got one.  Suddenly no interest/inspiration so I sold the kit.  I also thought I would love to have one of those unusual Joseph Angel houses.  But then I got my huge-mongeous Victorian/Jarrell Manor and I think it has enough inspiration, imagination and creativity spurring for me for many years!  :D

 

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Addams Family Mansion

Samantha and Darren's house on Morning Glory drive.

The Winchester House

A particular Lighthouse on west coast that has the cutest 1800s house attached to it

Monet's Giverny House (I have a version and I want another) with garden

Van Gogh's little yellow house

Lea Frisoni's French dollhouses - ANY of them!

1:12 or 1:48 replica of Tasha Tudor's dollhouse that was on display in Williamsburg.

Some of Flora Gill Jacob's houses

Nell Corkin houses (1:144!)

Any so many many more. If I could just have a museum to curate...

 

 

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For me it is sort of hard to know what I will fall in love with in advance. I have been through a number of dollhouses, but I think I am going to stick with the Shadow Cliff I just got. It was prebuilt, pre-decorated, preloved. Whoever decorated the inside did a fantastic job of making a period Victorian house. When I was growing up we owned an island in British Columbia. This is not as unusual as it would be today. I am old and back then that area was considered wet, wild and difficult to get to. In other words, tent camping vacation country and sort of undesirable. Now of course it is resort territory and even if we still owned the island (which we don't) we couldn't even begin to pay taxes on it. But it was, and always will be, home to me, and I find myself drawn to dramatic coastlines, in my real life and my mini one. So I look at some of the model train videos, there is one especially that I love-(Troels Kirk videos Coast Line RR ) maybe Swedish or something. He has made a fishing village with a wild shoreline that the train goes by, and a bay with docks (the water is especially good) it is all so real... I think if money and space were no object I would get a big ping pong table or something and take my Shadow Cliff which- now that I think about it, is a pretty accurate representation of the lighthouse keepers house one island over (she was a family friend when I was small)- and I would have a spectacular setting added to that. There would be tall fir and steep rugged cliffs dropping to a wild sea, a small but protected piece of sand beach with tumbled and silvered driftwood at the end. A little sailing dinghy, paths up through berry vines filled with ripe blackberries... could take a years and years, and skills I would still need to acquire, but there you have it.

Edited by Felthen
tried to improve punctuation- queen of the run on sentence,. sigh
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8 hours ago, Felthen said:

And my punctuation is still so wrong...

Sometimes punctuation gets in the way of expression. You express yourself very well. I can easily imagine your lighthouse keeper's house in its wild setting. :) 

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These are all wonderful ideas. Ooo, the Monet house, I'd forgotten about that one! JBNMini, your childhood home is beautiful! Midlife Madness, I would love to see the interior pictures of that beautiful house.

Felthen, I had an RGT lighthouse that had "rocky shore" landscaping around it. It only added about an extra 3" all around, but it made such a difference. Could you try landscaping your Shadow Cliff similarly? Mine just sat onto the landscaped base piece and wasn't attached.

I didn't make it, but I'm pretty sure the creator used expandable foam. You can find tutorials on Youtube for model railroading that show how to work with it, carve it, paint it, etc. Done right, it looks like the rocky coast of Maine or the shores of the San Juan Islands. I loved mine but unfortunately it got badly broken up in a move (the landscaped base that is, not the entire lighthouse).

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My dream has always been to have an English made Art Deco house. I can imagine the shipping cost. Shivers. Still a nice dream. Maybe someday as I’m not quite ready to give up.

A more realistic dream is to have the space to set up my dollhouse with landscaping, a garden, a swimming pool with patio, add in the stable with some pasture for the ponies and other farm yard critters. All in 1/12 scale. I have the house and stable, I just need to make all the rest. Time I need more time!

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Yes if it just sat on the base and could be lifted off then the house would still fit through the door, The table could fold, and you could turn the base sideways or something to get it to fit through the door also. Hmmm might work. I will have to think more on this.:D A dramatic seaside setting might be a possibility. 

Thanks Kelly

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  • 3 months later...

I've never really been interested in the traditional Georgian or Victorian dolls house. (Most of the large dollshouses that you get in the UK are based on that). Instead, I find themed projects much more interesting. So, I would say Bag End in miniature, or James Herriot's Skeldale House vet surgery, or a Natural History muesum filled with dinosaurs and other curiosities. The latter would be expensive not just because of the size of the building required (it would have to be huge!) but because most of the pieces would be one off minitures and artisan made. I also quite like Tudor castles and if I could get one, it would probably the one which is most realtic for me to make as there are quite few makers of furinature and I can make some of the tapersties, etc, myself. The problem is just getting the right building.

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59 minutes ago, Icewolf said:

or a Natural History muesum filled with dinosaurs and other curiosities. The latter would be expensive not just because of the size of the building required (it would have to be huge!) but because most of the pieces would be one off minitures and artisan made.

But how fabulous would that be?  Of course, you could make it smaller by doing it in half scale.  ;-)

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