Number 4, the biggest and oldest

Here's the last of my 4 new dolls houses in Bathurst. I bought this one on ebay from Melbourne, and happened to be in Bathurst when I had it freighted - fortuitous, as it's big and quite heavy! So it cost enough to bring it up to Bathurst, let alone all the way to Darwin ...

This house is over 3 feet wide - about 37" (or 92.5 cm), and 37" high as well, to the top of the roof ridge (40" (1 m) including the chimney, which isn't visible here as it needs to be fixed back into the house).

Style-wise, the house could be anywhere from about the 1880s-1930s. I don't know much about it, but, if the wallpapers are original, I think it probably dates from around the 1920s.
(There is a removalists' label inside one of the fronts - probably from a former owner, who perhaps might have a bit of information about it? I might try contacting them ..... )

The house has two opening fronts - well, they should open on hinges, but the hinges are broken, so the fronts are removable at the moment. They are held closed by little wooden latches that you can just see (at the bottom of the roof line, on either side of the non-opening central section), and there used to be a lock, as well.

There are two bay windows, one on either side of the front door ...

And just inside the front door is the staircase:

You can see that the exterior paint is quite worn and crazed, and some strips are missing from the door frame, window frames and roof ridges. I quite like the aged appearance, and the missing bits reveal earlier decoration. The existing brick exterior is incised into the wood, and painted (and then the paint seems to have come off in places where it's been washed or sanded). The exterior must originally have been papered with red brick paper - a tiny bit appears at the bottom of a window frame, where a strip of wood is missing:

The roof also has tiles incised into the wood, and is then painted grey - but where the roof ridge strips are missing, there is grey tile paper visible:

Inside the house, there are four main rooms:

and a little annex in the top left room! This was described in the auction listing as a pantry, but I'm pretty sure it was intended as a bathroom!

It's the only house of this age that I have which has a bathroom - very exciting! (Still needs cleaning!)

I mentioned the wallpapers - let's have a closer look at them. In both downstairs rooms is a rather faded and slightly stained paper with an art deco design:

I'm going to keep this paper - I've bought some artists' chalk pastels to disguise the water stains a bit. The colours were obviously brighter when the paper was new - you can see remnants of colours in some places - grey, yellow, pale blue, salmon and white. Perhaps the original colouring would be preserved behind the stairs, or behind the wood in the corner of this room - but I don't think I'll take the house apart to find out!

The lower left room, which I think of as the kitchen, had other wallpapers applied over the art deco one. I think I'll probably leave the remains of the bright blue paper, with black and red shapes on it ... but cover the water stain here with pastels ...

While whatever flooring was in the lower right room has long gone, there are remains of floor papers in the kitchen:

There's a streaky bluey-green paper, and on the right, a streaky brown paper. Both are covered with a reddish substance, which I think is probably from the base of lino which was stuck onto the papers at some point, and then later removed. So I think the original flooring was bluey-green in the centre, with brown strips at the sides (and back and front too, perhaps?) I'm not sure yet what I'll do with this floor - probably find some old floor paper and place it over this.

Upstairs, the wallpapers are less exciting, but both rooms have two layers of flooring. This is the upper right room:

Here's a better view of the original wallpaper, as well as a scrap of one of the papers applied over it:

The original paper was cream-coloured, I think - it's browned in places - and embossed in a small pattern of irregular round shapes. One of the later papers was a ca 1970s embossed design of green on white, which can be seen in the corner in the photo above. On the back wall, there are remains of this paper too - just the brown back part of the paper, which I am removing - you can see the shapes of the embossing in this brown backing. You can also see a scrap of another paper, with a pink on white design.

The floor in here is very exciting. What you see first is blue stripey lino with a pink painted surround - but under the blue lino is a pink floor paper with a design of tiny dots:

Isn't it wonderful?! I'd like to lift the lino off altogether - I just hope I can do it without tearing this lovely paper.

The upper left room has some rather nice lino:

and a plain terracotta wallpaper:

It also has the same kind of very delicate floor paper under the lino, this time in brown. The lino isn't as loose here, but you can just see the paper:

I tried out a couple of pieces of furniture, just to see what they would look like. Obviously, there's a lot more cleaning to do, let along possibly removing the lino, and finding new floor papers for the kitchen and lower right room.

This bath would look good with the lino - not such a good match with the brown floor paper, if I remove the lino ....

I thought the triangular decoration of this sideboard made from Handicrafts design 5363 (available from the early 1920s-1934) would go well with the art deco wallpaper ...

I am also thinking about dolls to live here. The rooms have very high ceilings - about 13 inches (32.5 cm), and this lower right room is 12" (30 cm) wide and 15" (about 37.5 cm) deep. I could either have 1/12th scale dolls with very spacious rooms, or perhaps slightly larger dolls - I'll see what I have, and what comes along .... lots of excitement ahead!

Kitchen Table Scales

It's been a while since my last post - partly I was busy working on my part of an article about Keystone for Dolls Houses Past and Present, and partly I have been a bit down - having some ideas for posts, but not the energy to put them together. This weekend I decided that I would start decorating the inside of my Lines DH/D, even though I haven't finished scraping the outside. So I'll take photos of that in the next day or so, and meanwhile, here's one of my ideas!


Several of you have posted photos of your dolls house furniture in different scales. When I was putting together my dolls house study and the Super City mini-building, it occurred to me that it would be fun to stand pieces in different scales on top of each other.

These kitchen tables can also nest:


and by placing them next to each other and looking from above, you can see that the long end of the smaller table equals the short end of the bigger table!


The largest table is 1/10th scale, and is vintage German (from Oese). The next one is 1/12th scale, and is also vintage German - it came in my VERO Rügen, and I think it's Crailsheimer. The pale green soft plastic table is 1/16th - 1/18th - it says 'Made in England', and I think it's Kleeware. The next table is marked Kleeware - it's 1/24th scale, and hard plastic. Then there's a tiny 1/48th scale cream coloured plastic table, which I think is by the Ohio Art Company (or a copy of their furniture) - and the tiniest is 1/144 scale, from the Sylvanian Toys dolls house for their dolls house.

UPDATE: Oese wondered on flickr if the scale of the pink table might be 1/10th, and the wooden table larger still. It's a very sensible question - it's clear that the tables are different sizes, but as I didn't measure them or include a ruler in the photos, the actual size, and hence the scales, was not obvious. So, I've now measured them, and here are their actual dimensions and the dimensions they would be in 1:1 scale. (Only in metric so far - I have measured them in inches too, but multiplying inches is a bit more complicated, so one thing at a time!)

The wooden table is 15.4 cm long x 10.2 cm wide x 8.5 cm high.
In 1:10 scale, this makes it 1.54 m x 1.02 m x 85cm.

The pink table is 11 cm long x 8.3 cm wide x 6.7 cm high.
In 1:10 scale, that would be 1.1 m x 83 cm x 67 cm,
and in 1:12 scale, it would be 1.32 m x 99.6 cm x 80.4 cm.

The pale green table is 8.85 cm long x 5.8 cm wide x 4.7 cm high.
In 1:16 scale, that would be 1.41m x 92.8cm x 75.2 cm,
and in 1:18 scale, it would be 1.59m x 1.04m x 84.6 cm.

The white table is 5 cm long x 3.1 cm wide x 2.8 cm high.
In 1:24 scale, that would be 1.2m x 74.4 cm x 67.2 cm,
and in 1:30 scale, it would be 1.5m x 93 cm x 84 cm.

(I don't actually know if 1:30 scale exists for dolls house furniture, but I wanted to see what it would be in a smaller scale than 1:24.)

I don't actually have a real-life rectangular kitchen table, just a small round dining table and the built-in kitchen work benches. So I can't measure a 1:1 scale table! What do you think? I think I'd be happy with the wooden table in 1/10th scale and the pink one in 1/12th - but the pink one certainly could be 1/10th. Perhaps the wooden one could be 1/8th (1.23 m long x 81.6 cm wide x 68 cm high), but again, I'm not sure if there are many 1/8th scale dolls.

I'm not very strict about scale in my own dolls houses, and especially with vintage furniture from many different makers and old dolls houses, I tend to do what I do with clothes - try it and see if it fits, within a scale up or down. But that means knowing roughly what will be a good fit - so knowing about scales does have some use!

1st Blogiversary*! Erna Meyer Scales

Today (7th February) is exactly one year since I started this blog.

I had planned a dolls house party to celebrate, and may still have one, but in real life in the last couple of weeks I have moved to a new office, have a new manager, and our team is working on our new role. The new office and manager are great, but the changes have still taken a fair bit of energy.

So, for today, I thought I'd show some of the different scales Erna Meyer dolls have been made in.


The first photo shows five couples with cloth feet, one of the features of Erna Meyer dolls that helps to date them: cloth feet were replaced by plastic feet in the (mid?) 1970s.

The tallest dolls are the 18th century couple, still in their cellophane wrapping. He is 18.5cm (7 1/4 inches) tall, and she is 17cm (6 5/8 inches). I measured from their heels to the top of their wigs - so without the wigs, they would be slightly shorter!


As you can see, these dolls have very detailed faces - the lady has a beauty spot as well as rouge on her cheeks. The label says "Liliput Biege-Püppchen - Ermey" in green and gold foil on the front, and "Made in Germany" printed in green on white card on the back.

Next to them stand a couple who are almost as tall - the man is 17.5cm (6 3/4 inches) and the woman is 16.5cm (6 1/2 inches).


Both these couples appear to be 1:10 scale - in real life, they would then be between 165cm and 185cm tall (roughly, 5' 6" - 6' 3").

Next come a couple who are both 14.5cm (5 3/4 inches), followed by a couple who are both 14cm (5 1/2 inches). These are in 1:12 scale. The woman in blue and the man wearing a suit both have the same cellophane wrapping and foil tag as the 18th century couple, and were probably made at about the same time.


(Some of these poor dolls have one leg shorter than the other, I have just realised - just like some real people.)


(The woman's wrapping has split in half, so it was possible to photograph her without it.) Perhaps they are slightly later, as the round red 'Spielgut' label has been added to their wrapping. This recognition of a toy as promoting good play is granted only to toys which meet certain criteria, and was first granted to Erna Meyer dolls in 1954**.

Finally, among the cloth-soled dolls, are two who measure just 12.5cm (5 inches). These dolls could fit into 1:12 scale houses - there are, after all, people who are 5' tall. They can also fit into 1:16 scale houses - I have some in my Lundby house and my Jenny's Home.


I don't have as many Erna Meyer dolls with plastic feet as with cloth feet - but enough to show two of the scales they come in.


The two taller dolls are 15cm (5 7/8 inches). They are slightly taller than the 1:12 scale cloth-shoed dolls, but still appropriate for that scale.


The shorter man is 12cm tall (4 3/4 inches), and perfect for 1:16 scale.



I have read that Erna Meyer dolls are now made in 1/24th scale too, but I don't have any of them - yet!

Thank you to all my followers and readers and fellow bloggers - I'm looking forward to the second year of blogging :-)

* I have borrowed this word from The Shopping Sherpa, who has just celebrated her own 4th blogiversary.

**Thank you to Diepuppenstubensammlerin for the article which told me this!