Odessa's House

I recently won this wonderful dolls house on ebay. It was in a Sydney suburb not far from where my sister lives, so it was only a short drive to go and pick it up.

The house is made largely of plywood, and there are some small areas of damage. But what an amazing facade! As you can see, there are two entrances at ground level - the arched opening in the centre, with a seat on each side of the arch, and tall (7") doors under a porch roof at the left. On the first floor above the central arch is a small balcony with double doors again  - and at the side, a single door opening to a large roof terrace.

Some features of this house - the arches, the circular fretwork windows, the roof terrace - make me think of Moorish or Middle Eastern architecture. The plywood stencils of a camel and a bear add to this impression. We think the two animals on either side of the arched entrance are goats - what do you think?

The whole front of the house lifts away. Inside the double doors is the hallway and stairs. On a small door to a cupboard under the stairs is another plywood animal - a donkey, I think. And leading in to the next room is a large archway, with little round tables at the base of the arch. (One of these is broken, but there are more between the other rooms.)

Above each room, at the front, the plywood is shaped to form something like a proscenium arch or drapery. I'm sorry I didn't take a photo of the whole house open, so you could see them in each room. You can see them clearly in some of the photos of individual rooms, including this one:

This is the room that the arched entryway leads into. I found it a bit hard to arrange furniture in here - it seems natural to make it a living room, but the lounge chairs and sofa, and the small kidney-shaped table, make it a bit full - and it would be hard to enter through the arch!

This room is on the right side of the ground floor, under the roof terrace. I have placed a dresser and table with matching chairs here - I think this is the kitchen, although no stove or fire came with the house.

Upstairs on the left, the stairs lead to this landing. The green bench is removable - it is built to fit around the balustrade.

As you can see, all the floors in the house are covered with the same lino. In fact, the green base at the front of the house is lino too, which has been painted green.

I have placed the wardrobe in this room, with a matching chair - but there is no bed! My sister said that the people who live here must be party animals - there's nowhere to sleep, and nowhere to cook, either, so they must always buy takeaway food!

Through the door on the right of this room is the roof terrace.

I mentioned that the walls of this house are made of plywood. The furniture is mostly solid wood, although two of the tables have formica tops. The windows have a hard kind of plastic, like the kind that used to be used in shirt boxes, fixed between inner and outer fretwood frames. The flooring is hardboard, covered with the lino - you can see the underside of the hardboard in this photo:

(I haven't cleaned the undersides of the roof or floors yet!)

The roof is made of plywood over wooden struts, and the coloured tiles on the roof top are plywood too.

The base is interesting - the ground floor, like the first floor, is hardboard, but the frame is made of planks of solid wood, one of which has printed on it SYDNEY NSW AUSTRALIA. The base of more letters can just be seen above this, but not enough of the letters is visible to work out what it says.

The ebay seller I bought this from had bought it for her daughter Odessa, probably about 10-15 years ago. I don't know who made it, or when. It is probably homemade, perhaps in about the 1950s (going by the presence of both the lino and the formica) - or perhaps earlier, as the architraves and arches also have an Arts and Crafts look about them.

I'm not sure yet who will live here. What do you think? What does this house make you think of?  What kind of dolls do you think would like to live here?

My Buys at the Fair

There weren't many stands with vintage pieces (apart from Anna-Maria's), and you had to look hard. I found it much easier when the crowds had thinned out on the afternoon of the first day. All of the dolls in the photo above were on Robyn's Mini Dolls' stand. The solid wooden furniture, and the Fairylite bath, are from Anna-Maria. (The books and stationery are modern reproductions - two from The Miniature Supermarket, and two from Michelle's Minatures (no website; her email is rmburns@ozemail.com.au.)


Aren't they cute? Both of these bisque dolls were on Robyn's Mini Dolls' stand. What first drew my attention to her stand was this set of folding furniture, which was in a box labelled '1900-1910 German Folding Dollhouse Furniture'.


I'm not sure if it is German - Patent No. 43297 is stamped on the back of all the pieces - but it's definitely old, and very ingenious.



And it led me to look more closely at the rest of her offerings. The two little bisques were on display:



They are wearing their original clothes, with 'Made in Japan' labels sewn on. You can also just see the 'Foreign' stamp on the back of the one on the left.

I bought this playground equipment from Anna-Maria:



These dolls are very small - these ones are tiny!


A kewpie and two other celluloid dolls with marcella waves, all from Robyn's stand. Having tried to put the dolls on the seesaw, I realise that the ones I've actually played on have bars at the front, not the back, so you don't slide down when your end goes up!

As I was showing interest in vintage dolls and furniture, Robyn drew my attention to this doll, which was on the stand - with the side of the box facing the front of the stand!


A boxed Flagg bridesmaid! At first I thought she was a bride, but Robyn showed me the end of the box:


Then she pulled out some more vintage dolls:


- this lovely painted-over bisque nurse (who's managed to get off her feet for a while, and has an Australian Women's Weekly magazine from December 1941 to read (from The Miniature Supermarket), and cards to write and send (from Michelle's Miniatures (email rmburns@ozemail.com.au)) -

- and this Grecon riding girl!


who also has her tag:


The flowers in the vase are made by The Designing Woman, Annie Warrener-Edge, of Queensland. She had two arrangements of Australian natives in her display - the Christmas bells were slightly different, and she explained that these ones, with rounded bases, were made after she had a chance to look closely at real Christmas bells. I think they're gorgeous - I love having Christmas bells in vases at Christmas, and now I can in a mini house too!
The book of crosswords - with a pencil that really writes! is from Michelle's Miniatures.


I bought the crocheted rugs at the end of the second day from Kim's Miniatures - at half price! Now I've had a chance to look at her website, I realise that the rugs came all the way from Sweden (via New Zealand), and are made by Berit Gyllenhammar. Kim's Minis also sells miniature marquetry by Berit Gyllenhammar - amazingly detailed - you can see some in my previous post.


Kim's Minis (www.kimsminis.com) also had fantastic food and baking equipment - I bought some baking trays and tins:


The wooden cupboard is from Anna-Maria. The gingerbread people and cutting boards are from Adelaide's Miniatures by Design (www.adelaidesminiatures.com), and I found the Acme toaster oven on Diana Simms' stand (it's a fridge magnet, and she had a couple of others, a stove and something - but much smaller scale). This was another stand with vintage and antique dolls, though I didn't get a photo (and didn't buy any of them).

As well as the magazine, I bought some groceries from The Miniature Supermarket:


I was able to spend some time at A Sheila's Shed's stand - I've looked at her kits for 1:144 scale furniture online, and it was good to be able to see the finished items and choose which I'd like to try.


(I haven't tried any yet! There are also 3 tiny solid pieces in the photo - a sink, stove and fridge - so at least I've got some things ready to go in a house!!!)

Somewhere, I've got 3 plastic chairs from Anna-Maria - not to mention her Tomy Smaller Home!
I was sorry that there weren't more vintage and antique dolls houses and furnishings - in previous years, Anna-Maria has photographed stalls with quite a choice. However, it gave us a sense of achievement when we did find vintage things in amongst all the new pieces!

The day before the fair started, we drove across the Blue Mountains to Sydney, and I found some lovely vintage miniatures in an antiques centre in Blackheath. I was very glad I'd bought them when I saw how little there was at the fair (although I still managed to spend a fair bit of money!) So I'll photograph the Blackheath accessories next.