New Acquisitions and Inventory Time

I usually browse Facebook Marketplace with a simple keyword search: dollhouse. The results are mostly plastic children's play toys but occasionally wood dollhouses and dollhouse kits pop up.  If you've followed my blog you know I've acquired some great houses on Marketplace. When I did this recent search a garage sale popped up because they mentioned a dollhouse in the description of the post. I contacted the seller to inquire if the dollhouse was wood or plastic, and she replied with TWO wood dollhouses for $30 total. She attached pictures of the houses, and I couldn't do the electronic payment fast enough. I purchased a DuraCraft Sweetheart that is completely finished and fully electrified, including two working light fixtures and the second house is a Walmer Cranberry Cove, unfinished on the inside and missing the front porch attachment. I can do a lot with this Walmer house, I'm looking forward to working on that one.

 

Walmer Cranberry Cove, 1:12 Scale

 

DuraCraft Sweetheart Cottage 1:12 Scale

Both of these houses are new projects for me, as I intend to finish off the Cranberry Cove, and completely redo the Sweetheart as a Tudor style with a thatched roof. I just can't look at the roof lines on this house and not see a thatched roof. I'm not fond of the current colors either, or the decorative hearts all over the house. I could possibly get carried away and make it a fairy house, the potential is there, but as of now I'm thinking of a clean lined tudor.

The Cranberry Cove may end up with a solid brick exterior with no front porch, or my second vision is a smaller front porch than the original, that just covers the front door area. If I do that I would try to add a bay window on the first floor as well. I'm still looking at both of these houses carefully, to get a clear vision.

I wasn't able to blog about this next acquisition, because four days after I bought it my home flooded in the storm surge from Hurricane Ian in South Florida on September 28, 2022. This is a Hofco Federal Victorian, that I drove 2 hours one way to pick it up. I also found this on Marketplace, and honestly didn't realize how big it was until I picked it up. Not only is it the largest house I have, it's made of MDF wood so it is very heavy. The back is solid flat because it's a front opening dollhouse, so it's a lot like a piece of furniture. It's similar in size to a small dresser. The house is in pretty good shape, a few pieces need to be reassembled and the hinges need reinforced, but overall it's great.

HOFCO Federal Victorian Front Opening Dollhouse 1:12 Scale

Since I have a dollhouse display room now, I'm starting to absorb the size of my collection. In addition to the houses I have listed below, I have many room boxes, lanterns, odd scale houses and my built Quarter Scale houses. Once my dollhouse room is completely set up I will post a video and photos. 

CURRENT DOLLHOUSE INVENTORY
Listed in order of acquisition

 

Built Houses:
1949 Keystone of Boston
Greenleaf Travel Trailer
Greenleaf Arthur
Greenleaf Brookwood
Greenleaf Harrison Rehab
Greenleaf Harrison Partial Build
Petite Dreams Victorian
Greenleaf Buttercup
DuraCraft Ashley
Greenleaf Brimbles Mercantile
Whitney Tennyson
Batrie Sparrow Lane
Skilcraft Colonial
Greenleaf Washington
Skilcraft Cape Cod
Lundy Gotenburg
Hofco Federal Victorian
Walmer Cranberry Cove
DuraCraft Sweetheart
Four Greenleaf 1/4 Scale Houses

Dollhouse Kits:
DuraCraft Pioneer Log Cabin
Real Good Toys Princess Anne
Real Good Toys Victorian Cottage Jr.
Artply Highland
Walmer Mint Julep w/Left and Right Wing Additions
Greenleaf Rosedale
Greenleaf Orchid
Greenleaf Travel Trailer
Greenleaf Village Kit
Greenleaf Town Kit
Greenleaf Emerson Row
Real Good Toys Beachside Bungalow
DuraCraft Newberg
Real Good Toys Conservatory

I have several projects in mind that I want to get started on, I need to decide which one I should tackle next. Most likely it won't be a new kit, as I have several built houses that need to be refinished. In the meantime, I think I will stay off of Facebook Marketplace for a while, Ha! 

Thank you for visiting!

~ Mini - Shack

Boston and my visit to Flip This Dollhouse store

I recently went on a trip to Boston, MA to catch a Red Sox game and spend time with my daughter. I had some time on my hands while she was in meetings, so I checked out the architecture in the Boston Back Bay neighborhood that, earlier, our Uber driver described as "old money, you won't find any AirBNB's here".  Being a dollhouse builder, and living my entire life in flat-house-Florida, I was on sensory overload looking at the homes, businesses, churches and monuments. We don't have Brownstones where I come from, or historic Victorian craftsmanship close to 400 years old. A lot of our homes are suburban homes with grass or sand to walk on. We have plenty of condominiums, but most Floridians live on land not up in the air. I've built dollhouses and purchased dollhouse accessories that are so much like some of the homes I saw in Boston.

I must confess, it was somewhat surreal to see them in "real scale". Something so commonplace to one person, can be fascinating and beautiful to another. I live in Florida and I can appreciate the beauty of a palm tree, but I've seen one just about every day of my life. So I don't appreciate them as much as someone who has only been to Florida a handful of times. I have a particular interest in architecture anyway, so every corner I turned I was taking photos. Luckily Boston is a tourist destination, so I wasn't as out of place taking street photos as it would sound.

When I was invited to Boston I realized I couldn't be that close to Flip This Dollhouse and not plan a visit. Quite possibly the largest dollhouse store in America, maybe the world, Flip This Dollhouse is located in New Bedford, MA, USA and offers resale and new dollhouses and accessories. It's a unique business, location and experience. 

The shop is located on the second floor of the Kilburn Mill, which is right on the water. It's in a small historic picturesque town which we didn't get to spend any time in, except for our rather amazing breakfast we had at the Diner across the street from the Mill.  When you walk through the door of the shop you are instantly overwhelmed with the amount of space, and the sight of dollhouses and furniture display cases. The houses are lined up on long tables, similar to streets, and each house is fully furnished and decorated. Everything you see in each house is available for sale. The houses are accessible from the front and the back, so you can see every angle and they're donned with linear spotlights for detailed viewing. A section of the store is a dedicated museum, with majestic homes on loan from a Collector. Browsing through the entire shop however makes you feel like the whole place is a museum, with the best gift shop ever.

There are over a hundred dollhouses, with just about all sizes, ages and styles. There are kits available as well, and accessories and building supplies that are new in the package. But in my opinion, the best part about the store is the vintage furniture and accessories. Vintage, by definition, means of age and in the dollhouse world of age can mean a gold mine. The miniature dollhouse industry doesn't produce a lot of new good quality furniture, but they sure did back in the old days. This is one big giant location for unique, interesting and sometimes rare vintage pieces. There are not a lot of, if any, stores like this and I believe there needs to be more. As time goes on, many of the vintage pieces are getting older and older and will be even harder to find. When a builder or collector passes away, their valued treasures need a place to go where they will be appreciated, fixed up, and given a new life and a chance to make someone else happy.

The owner of the store, Nathaniel Ellis, was available when I visited and it was a joy to meet him and talk about miniatures. He was generous with his time and shares the passion, and appreciation, for all things miniature. His houses have been featured in ABC's "The Fatal Flaw" and HBO's "The Gilded Age". I have a feeling it's just the beginning of his on-screen presence, there's lots of potential with Nathaniel and his business. One of the icons of the store is the "Elephant Mansion". I couldn't wait to finally see it in person, and yes it is huge. It has 21 rooms, 4 stories plus a tower and it's 8 foot by 6.5 foot wide. It's accessible from all sides and truly quite impressive. Not just in size, but in the details and the quality. The story and history of the house can found on their Facebook page, and it's worth a read.

I highly recommend making a trip to this magical place if you can. I will go back again someday, hopefully soon. I could have spent all day there, and I'm not exaggerating. I bought a few tiny things while I was there, but because I was flying home I didn't want anything too large. I took over 200 photos, so when I returned home I sent a message to the owner Nathaniel with photos of what I wanted to purchase and he mailed them to me. They don't actually have an online store, but the owner does a lot of live video walk's and a lot of photos so if you see something he will mail it to you. If you follow them on Facebook you will see a lot of photos of past and current houses.

After I returned home from Boston, my home and my town took a direct hit from category 4 Hurricane Ian on September 28, 2022. I haven't written a blog since the hurricane, but I do have some exciting projects coming up. My home flooded in the storm surge, but only one of my dollhouses took on water and had damage. The others were all elevated high enough and wrapped in cellophane for protection. My home was emptied out, repaired, and I moved back in to an empty house with the belongings I saved from the flooding. This gave me the opportunity to completely reorganize my dollhouses. I now have one room dedicated to just my built houses on display, and a separate room to work in and store all my supplies. It's a much better flow, and I am really enjoying my new "dollhouse room". It's like my own private Mini-Shack Museum.

More posts to come with updated projects. Thank you for visiting!

~ Mini Shack

My Skilcraft Cape Cod Dollhouse Video and Interior Photos

Please enjoy this video of my Cape Cod dollhouse by Skilcraft. It shows the interior rooms with detailed photos, plus the building process at the end of the video.

My YouTube Channel also has videos of some of my other miniature projects.

 

A few of the interior room photos. More detailed photos are in the video:

Please feel free to ask any questions in the comments. 

Thank you for visiting!

 

~ Mini Shack

Happy Independence Day from my Cape Cod Summer House

What a fun little house to build! This is a Skilcraft Cape Cod dollhouse that I hunted for several years for. I finally found one in an unopened box and pretty much shuffled all my other projects aside and started building. I love doing nautical style homes and minis, and with this architectural style of home it was an easy decision how to decorate. I tried to stay away from the traditional nautical colors of red and navy blue by using shades of mint, teal and various light and dark blues. For the first time ever, I also included a laundry room. Initially that room was going to be a smaller bedroom, but the space was too challenging. In all honesty, I have 3-4 sets of washers & dryers and several ironing boards in my stash that I haven't used yet. So I figured I'd go ahead and take the opportunity to do one in this extra space. 

The original kit has two large rooms on the first floor with a carport. Although I was excited initially to make a carport/garage, I quickly realized there was not enough space downstairs. I love conservatory's, and I only needed two new walls, so I made one myself. I cut an opening in the original wall so you could walk into the conservatory from the kitchen. I also liked the way the house looked from the front with the conservatory added. I did quite a bit of visual research on Cape Cod homes and saw many built like this. The worn shake siding mixed with white panel siding on the conservatory looks very appealing and realistic, with white window frames accenting the shake siding. I intentionally did not add shutters either, as most of the traditional Cape Cod homes I saw did not have them. I kept the landscaping light, as this also seemed a trait of Cape Cod homes, and I pictured this house in the summer time, not the winter, because the grass is green and the flowers are in bloom. Inside the house the owners have returned from a day at the beach and are having wine, cheese and dessert in the conservatory. The American flag is hanging out front, and as the photos were being taken, it was flying in the wind.

 

Here's a few photos of the interior of the Cape Cod. I will make another post with detailed interior photos, and a link to the video on my YouTube Channel once it's completed.

Happy Independence Day and I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday! Thank you for visiting.

 

~ Mini Shack

A Sister house, the Greenleaf Buttercup

I recently finished building a Greenleaf Buttercup dollhouse for a special family, with the colors chosen by the new owner, Linsey. This house will be in the same bedroom as the pink Dura Craft Ashley dollhouse I built about a year ago for her half sister Jenise. 

Linsey has a different personality then Jenise so she chose more fun bright colors for her house. She also chose purple for the front door color. I gave both of the girls these houses bare so they could add their own decorations and furniture, etc. I managed to get this done just before Christmas, so I hope they're enjoying them both!

 

 

I also uploaded a quick video of the completed house on my YouTube Channel Mini-Shack, with more detailed interior and exterior photos. As with almost all my videos, there are clips of the building process at the end of the video. Here is the video on YouTube:

 

 

Now that I have built both the Dura Craft Ashley and the Greenleaf Buttercup, I can say they are pretty much the same size and take the same amount of time. Originally the Ashley dollhouse kit came with a spiral staircase, but I chose not to use it and built a straight set of stairs instead. So when I started building the Buttercup and realized it doesn't come with any stairs at all, I decided to use the spare set from the Ashley! So in case anyone has noticed - YES, the Ashley spiral staircase is installed in the Buttercup. 

Since the Buttercup is done now, I started working on my new Cape Cod Skilcraft house. It was my Christmas present to myself, and even though I have so many other exciting projects to choose from I couldn't wait to open the box and get it started. It's not a large house, so I don't anticipate taking too long to complete it. I really wanted cedar shake siding to make it as authentic as possible, but was dreading the task of applying the shingles by hand. So I went to one of my favorite dollhouse websites miniatures.com and did a quick search. I was delighted to find exactly what I was looking for: a sheet of pre-molded shake siding. I painted a few layers of different tones of grey, did some rubbing, and the weathered look came out perfect. I'm excited to get the rest of the house together, as I'm doing a little bit of kit bashing as well. More on that later!

Thanks for visiting :-)

~ Mini-Shack

Merry Mini Christmas, to ME!

For the past few years I've been hunting for this specific house, a Skilcraft Cape Cod. I saw one on eBay, but it was overpriced and I couldn't quite tell if the box had been opened. I don't usually spend money on myself during the holidays, but a couple weeks before Christmas one popped up on Marketplace. An unopened kit, still with the plastic wrapper on it. It wasn't a local pickup, it came from California, and not only was the price low but the shipping was free. It showed up on my doorstep in just 5 days, during Christmas week! 

I have also been on the hunt for a reasonably priced Real Good Toys "New Orleans" house, or a vintage Batrie "Bradley" house, but had decided that whichever house I found first would satisfy my craving for a "Cape Cod" style house to build. Skilcraft wasn't a high end brand, but this will be a much lighter house than either of the other two and I will make it awesome. It also has a unique feature that the other's do not, a carport!

 

I actually own another Skilcraft house, the "Colonial". One of my oldest friends gave it to me when she explained that her Mother was cleaning out her storage shed and was going to throw it away. It was her childhood dollhouse, which she had completely forgot about. I told her I would rehab it and make it a fabulous Colonial Estate house. One day in the future if she ever wants it back she can have it. She had very fond memories playing with that house as a child. 

I have not started the actual renovations yet, but I have collected quite a few construction parts for it - a front entry door, columns, shutters, siding, etc. Skilcraft houses are plywood, but come with plastic siding, windows and shutters and the roof shingles are strips of thick pre-cut black paper. So all that will be replaced with wood parts and roof shingles. Here's the house the day she brought it over (after I stripped the roof). I have all the extra parts that came with it in a bag:

 

Here's a diagram of some of the Skilcraft Dollhouse models, which is a photo of the back of the box of my new Cape Cod house. It doesn't include their "Nob Hill" model, which is a grand scale house or their "Federal". Also pictured below are close up photos of the two houses I currently own. I've also had my eye on an eBay listing that included the Victorian Mansion plus a matching Coach House (not shown in the photo). I love houses with mansard style roof's, and the coach house is really cute too. I've actually seen several listed on eBay, but all the box conditions were kind of terrible, so I didn't want to risk it.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas, and looking forward to another New Year of miniatures! Lots of fun and exciting projects to get to. 

Thank you for visiting!

~ Mini-Shack

Mia's House

Just finished Mia's house! She's going to be so excited, and I wish her many years of imagination play in this custom house, made just for her. She requested these colors, and I must say they turned out lovely.  I left the house very basic so she can add her own curtains, lights, rugs, pictures, furniture, etc.

This kit was an older Whitney Tennyson, and the wood was rather challenging. Not good quality at all, but overall it's a GREAT house to build. This version of the Tennyson requires a lot of trim, and I'm referring to extra trim not included with the kit. They're pretty generous with trim in the kit too, but again the wood quality was really bad I had to use my own.

I ended up using a set of stairs that I had in my stash instead of building the stairs from the kit. With the wood quality as bad as it was, I didn't feel like slicing my fingers up any more than I had to. I was shocked at the porch balusters however, as that part of the wood was in decent shape so the porch and balcony railings came out good. The doors all open and close, and they're reinforced with a strip of ribbon holding them in place. When I glued the roof peaks together I also ran a strip of electrical tape across the tops for some extra reinforcement. I added a foundation since the kit doesn't come with one. The stone exterior is actually strips of wallpaper.

I would be very, very interested in getting my hands on another Tennyson kit and doing some major kit bashing and upgrading. When I was dry fitting the house, prior to adding the third floor peaks, I definitely saw an Art Deco modern Miami style house. Would love to explore that further!

Please enjoy this short video, as it includes the building process as well:

Here is the front and back of the finished house:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now I need to figure out which project to start next! I have so many waiting, plus quite a few room boxes. I may do a few room boxes so I can get those hung up on the walls. I've always wanted to do that, and I managed to find just the right ones. For now though, as I do after every build, it's time to clean up and reorganize.

 

Happy Sunday and Thank you for visiting!!

 

~ Mini-Shack