Faith Bradford's Doll House, Revisited

Wow.  It's huge, and wow- lot's of work to do.  But, I look at it and I see the Faith Bradford house.  No doubt about it. Took 4 people to move it, and my house is rearranged and I had no idea how much junk is stowed in the corners.  The man with the long beard is my husband, Craig.  A wonderful person, a wonderful husband, and very supportive.   At this point I went outside, because I was pretty sure it was not going to turn the corner, I was pretty sure the builders thought we were slobs (we are, but that's beside the point), and there were some pretty ugly words being used...  I knew Craig would make it all well- and... ... one of the movers brought his kids... and... ...my 90 year old Mother arrived in case we needed help.  So, we stayed outside until all the guys came out and told us it was in and a-ok. The closet in Alice's room. Me, with a huge dollhouse in the kitchen and a big smile on my face.  It was great to ha

The guest bedroom is currently occupied by Mr. Doll's mother and father: T his photo from Bird's America's Doll House. A lot of TynieToy in there! Here's what I have so far- The wallpaper is a vintage border that is 3 inches wide.  I will trim off some of the top and cut around the grapes to make it smaller.  Not violets, but it is lavender. There is a fantastic purple and black braided rug on the way, I have a deck of cards, and some of the other accessories.  Next I need Grandmother and Grandfather, and where the heck did that white trunk in the front of the room come from?  Maybe a candy container??  See the chair Grandmother is sitting in?  There is another of this style in the parent's bedroom.  Upholstered, with wide bias binding down the sides.  If you know where these came from, let me know! 

Coming along!     Nursery floor.   Hallway wallpaper- what a problem this has been!  The Smithsonian house has two different kinds of polka dots, and even standing in front of it you can't really tell color.  I went with neutral gray and symmetrical dots.  This is scrapbook paper- but I painted and stamped 3 other sets until I settled on this.   Silly me, I should have taken Alice with me! One of the arched doorways.

Move in is in 40 hours-  here's what it looked like this afternoon. Hard to see, but the Laundry, Pantry, and Butler's Pantry are all painted mustard.  The house is too high to see the painted floors on the third floor (we call it the fourth floor when working). The top roof will be detachable, which will make it easier to shingle.  The shingles arrived today, but I am afraid to open the box and see the job ahead of me. The builder has made all of the clapboards for the sides- There is a darker section of claps above the first window, but it all gets painted over.  The windows don't get glued in until the wallpaper is in- what a jigsaw puzzle.  You get a better sense of the stain on the grooved floors in the bottom room, which is the dining room. The back is just on with 2 screws, it comes off tomorrow to glue wallpaper behind the hall doors. ETA:  Karen just texted to say it can come tomorrow afternoon if I want.  Oh my gosh, the space isn't ready!  

This is the only picture I know of of Alice's face- it is from my original Smithsonian booklet: Here she is from the side- from William L. Bird's America's Doll House: What do I know?  Brown hair with braids, brown eyebrows, blue and white or yellow print dress tied with red ribbon and red ribbons in her hair.  She is looking down, but I do not anything about her legs or feet.     Here are three potential Alice's-   The one on the right is a blond, so she is out.  The middle one is the best face, but she has a lovely outfit that I would need to remove.  On the other hand, both her arms and legs are hinged. What do you think?  Take her part or not?  I could end up with lots of glue on her head, too. The naked doll is probably my best bet, I will just need to lean her forward towards the window. Here's what I did today- I was going to do a scan of items for Alice's room...but... you've seen Alice, you've seen the wicker carriage, a

...what a difference a weekend makes!  I knew he was going to rout the space for walls to sit in the floors and ceilings, but I had no idea it would be like this! When we got home there was a message from Mark to 'be at work' at 0930 this morning.  I laughed, and showed up 10 minutes late.  He wanted me to mark where the doors are to go, and decide if the windows are centered in the rooms.  I did all of the markings, putting the Arcade sink in the kitchen to mark the door since that is the tightest fit. I decided to take a photo with what I am using for floor paper here, but on the wrong side of the kitchen since there is a big clamp on the other side.  I also marked which floors get floor boards grooved in. Tomorrow window and door openings get cut, while I paint ceilings.  Not sure when the floors get grooved.  Today I left him building the roof. The shingles will be glued to the top of what you are looking at. Mr. Mark is next building an airplane

I need to start getting a handle on what I have and what I need.  I pulled the bin with the least amount of things inside... and here is my review of contents of  Mr. Doll's Study: Here's the original, photo taken from the web, and here are the pieces I have: I think the wallpaper will work fine.  Mr. Doll's brother has volunteered to fill in, he is good enough for now but if I can get him to grow a mustache he would be perfect.  There are  3 of the Lynnfield Breakfronts (bookcases) in the house, so this Secretary will have to do for now.  The curl arm TynieToy chair is on the way.  The rug in here may be a problem.  I thought finding either an old or newer one would be easy, but not so.  Looks like the light fixture is a chandelier glued upside down with glass balls glued in as bulbs, I need to check my boxes and other houses before I start hunting online. I have it on good authority that the dictionary is Dolly Dear, there are two of them in the house.  I

The lumber arrived yesterday at the workshop, 1/2 inch birch for sides, outer walls, floors and roof plus 3/8 inch MDF for dividing walls and maybe false back wall. You can see the birch in the back, but that is the 'rough' side, the better side is very blond and smooth. Here's Mark the Builder: And Karen his assistant: She wields the computer and calculator and puts tools in his hands like an operating room assist. He started working while I was there, but mostly was doing math, and mumbling about the scales of the photographs he is working from.  The house will be 7.5 feet long, and he had a piece cut to size with the dividing walls drawn in so I could see the dimensions.  Sorry, I did not photograph that.   Maybe in this photo you can see there are two major dividing walls running up and down, dividing the house into thirds.  Thing is, with his funny ruler thingy he showed me that the middle section, the library for instance, is 28 inches

I continued to collect antique dollhouse furniture all of my working life.  I traveled a lot driving Geo Metro's, saving the travel and gas per diem for spending at antique stores.  I started to buy on ebay, and discovered that the person I bought from the most lived one town over from me-Ann Meehan.  Man, that got expensive!  But we pal'd around some, and she got to know what I liked, and I got to know lots of dealers.   Sometime later Ann and Sue Singer split a house worth of furniture and asked if I wanted the house.  By then I had about 10 old houses, and had just gotten a Hacker.  This new house was going to be big and I wasn't sure.  My husband, bless his heart said 'We can always find room for another house'... so off I went to see the large glass fronted house.  Imagine my surprise when Sue handed me a little pile of papers and a letter: The Bradford House!!! Ok, so, meant to be!  My first thought was 'I can have a Bradford house of my own! 

    Well, here I am, at another step in my Doll House adventures.  Bear with me while I explain a little:    When I was 8 or 9, in the early 1960's, I was diagnosed with what we now call Type I Diabetes.  Insulin was easily accessible and fairly inexpensive, so I spent 3 weeks in the hospital and came home much healthier then when I went in.  My Grandmother believed I wouldn't live long since everyone she knew with the disease died young.  She thought I deserved an adventure, so off we went on the train to Washington, DC.  I remember thinking the Mayflower hotel was much better than the hospital, and she felt privileged staying there when the taxi driver told her there were tunnels over to the White House so the President could walk over!    The first day we went to the museum, and the first and only thing I remember seeing is Faith Bradford's Doll House.  I was mesmerized!  She kept telling me to 'Come see some other wonderful things' but I wouldn't leave