| My Doll Houses |
| THE START When I was just a little lass . . . In 1978, my primary school held a fete / bazaar and one of the hi-lites of this particular bazaar, was a raffle of a Fun Time Sindy doll and a wooden 4 piece Lounge suite and a 3 piece bedroom suite, complete with all the soft furnishings. Well of course I took tickets - lots of them - I spent all my pocket money and then conned some more out of my folks to purchase a few more tickets on the following monday at school. Then came a day when the principal walked into my classroom with a huge box, placed it on the teacher's table and went into a lengthy congratulatory speech about the success of the bazaar, etc, and held out until the very last word that I was the lucky winner of the doll furniture - of course I was over the moon - and that was the end of lessons for me that day - how could I concentrate when all I could think of was getting home to play with my fantastic prize. The best was when they phoned my mom and asked her to please come up to the school at closing time - her first thought was "What did or didn't she do now?" (I was quite a naughty little girl at school). Anyway, she was also over the moon and shared my joy totally. This incident started the ball rolling and got me off to a great start. For the next 6 years, my mom bought me something for my dollhouse for my birthdays and for each Christmas. She bought mainly Sindy furniture because I really did not like Barbie furniture all that much at the time and I ended up with a complete 70s Sindy kitchen and Bathroom. Sometime during the course of those 6 years, I wrote to the Pedigree factory in England and made some logical suggestions about packaging shoes and small accessories separately - mainly due to the fact that a lot of the furniture I had received, had the small accessories stolen out of the boxes. Much to my delight, the marketing team of Pedigree saw fit to send me a huge box of Sindy stuff - I suppose as a thank you for the idea - anyway, the box arrived a few days before my birthday, and to this day, I swear they sent me the stuff as a birthday gift. The box was jam packed with shoes, small accessories for the kitchen and other rooms - they sent me the Sindy coffee table and rocking chair with all accessories, 2 armchairs for the bedroom, the Sindy scooter, the 70's Sindy yellow washing machine, I got the Beach buggy and blue tent and the orange tent with picnic set and in that box was another blue tent. They also sent me about 4 Sindy catalogues - no stranger could have sent a more delightful gift to a little girl. With all this furniture to fill a house and nowhere to live, something had to be done for Sindy. So my poor dad was roped in to make a three storey house for the dolls to live in. And what a house he built. THE FIRST DOLL HOUSE Two rooms on each floor. Ground floor: Lounge and Kitchen. 1st Floor: Bedroom and Study. 2nd Floor: Sindy's Bedroom and Bathroom. And right on the top - the roof garden. Many hours of fun were had in that doll house. Of course it is no more - it was too big to move, so my dad dismantled it and used the wood for other things. The dolls and furniture went into storage along with the clothing and all the other little things my mom and I had made. I kept only one doll out for when I was making doll clothes. At this stage I had about 4 Sindy dolls, a 1974 Malibu Skipper doll and a 1974 Malibu Barbie doll - both Mattel dolls had seen better days. Sometime during the "storage period", I found time to get married and set up home with my new husband. My interest in dolls had come to a dead stop. THE SECOND DOLL HOUSE About 3 years after I married, I found myself in a rut and I forgot who I was and what I liked. Then during one mad spring cleaning session - where even the furniture got thrown out - I found a new use for an empty wardrobe - the perfect dimensions for a doll house - I also rediscovered my passion for dolls and dollhouse decorating. Hubby and I sized up the wardrobe and drew up a basic plan and then he got to pulling out the rail and unnecessary shelving and putting in the good stuff. Floors and walls. I ended up with a six room house - one that I could close up when I finished "playing" and keep the cat out. The top floor was comprised of the Sindy kitchen with a bedroom next to it (later it was used as a nursery for the Pregnant Suzy doll I bought). The next floor down was comprised of the Sindy bathroom and the main bedroom (the furniture I had won in the raffle). On the next floor was the lounge and a study. I had much fun decorating this doll house on a shoestring. The Lounge carpeting was an offcut of brown fake fur and I made a wall unit from card covered with woodgrain self- adhesive contact plastic. All the ornaments and paraphernalia came from thrift shop finds and other like (or unlikely) places. The Study was one of two rooms that were completely finished off in this doll house. I used Sindy furniture in this room too, with a lot of maps on the walls, a notice board, a "bearskin" rug and lots of books and stationery and other little things crammed onto the desk. The bathroom still does not have wallpaper on the walls - although I did tile the floor. The bedroom was covered with a light green fake fur carpet. I papered the walls with a very pretty pink floral design - the green of the leaves matched perfectly with the carpet - I even put a skirting around the bottom. The kitchen floor was tiled - the walls left bare. The room next to the kitchen was papered with a woodgrain contact plastic and had a grey fake fur carpet. Although I still have this doll house, my daughter's dolls have moved in and have started slowly redecorating according to their own tastes. She has two doll houses - both in wardrobes. |
| Go onto - My New Doll House |
| Have a look at some pics from before my first doll house |