German (VERO?) Bungalow Kitchen

In my last post, I showed the façade of this bungalow:


So now, let's have a look inside. The patio has two comfortable chairs to relax on,


and the swinging doors lead in to the kitchen


All the furnishings here came with the house - and so did the dog. I think the people who live here must be busy unpacking in the living room, and looking forward to sitting down and enjoying this meal!
I really liked the flooring here when I saw it in the auction listing - it turns out that it has been added by a previous (original?) owner. I'm definitely keeping it, as it goes so well with the house and furnishings, and seems very 60s to me! (Not groovy 60s, but everyday 60s.)

Unlike my other German bungalow, this one has no maker's mark. I think it's also by VERO, not just because the components and construction methods are similar, but also because I found this house on the Puppenhausmuseum site:


It's labelled "Vorstadthaus mit Kamin" (suburban house with chimney) Vero, DDR, ca 1965-1970. As you can see, the swinging doors are identical, and there are other similarities too.

Slow Progress

I've been quiet (at least on here!) for a while, so I thought I'd show a few of the things I'm slowly working away at.
I'm still scraping paint off my Lines DH/D. I was pleased to find that most of the grey paint on the flat roof is still there, and in fact the white paint came off more easily now than when I started a few months ago (perhaps the high humidity helps). (Actually, it was 6 months ago. Yikes - where has that 6 months gone?)


I had almost finished scraping the green paint off the chimney, and chipped a bit of the layer underneath off by mistake - and realised that the original cream-coloured paint is in fact under that layer (pinky-white, some kind of undercoat I think). So the pinky-white layer has to come off too!
I have worked out how to reproduce some wallpapers - the newest version of Word for Macintosh leaves white spaces between images, but if I save in the older version of Word, the spaces disappear! But I don't want to wallpaper until I've done any painting that's necessary, and that will only happen when I've finished scraping ...



In the meantime, I've started scraping another house, the teachest house I bought from Michelle Robertson before she left Australia for the UK. Inside, it's all bare wood - plain, not to say rough. The outside walls and gable had been painted white, with black window frames. It looked very stark, and the original worn grey, yellow and cream paint is more in keeping with the interior. (I think this will become a slightly run-down guest house.)


The poor Swans have been left for quite a while in a half-furnished house. I have finally bought some tacky wax, and put up some pictures. I also used the wax to try to keep the carpet in place (but I still don't think I should take up carpet-laying professionally).



Next job here is to make some bedding. (Or at least cut it out and pretend!)

I've also put up another German bungalow:


More about this soon (I hope). It came with a lot of furniture, including more orange Bodo Hennig arm chairs and sofa, so I am trying out various fabrics to recover them.

The hospital has been very neglected (almost as badly as many real ones), and one of the nurses has got so tired that she's actually lying on the emergency bed next to a patient!


The doctor looks like he's going to keel over soon too, so I'd better do something about it.

And today, I took my first steps into selling on ebay. It took me a very long time to list just three items - I hope it will get quicker with experience! Trying to estimate a reasonable selling price and reasonable postage costs is quite tricky, as I'm sure all of you who already sell know very well.

Links and Connections

Here are two mini links passed on to me by friends.
The first is the opening credits of a new Australian movie, Tangle




Here are a couple of other scenes from the video:


(your typical Aussie backyard)


(your typical Aussie bathroom?!? Is that a toaster she's carrying?!?)

The other is a model railway for a model railway, N scale in Z scale! My sister thinks Tim might like one of these - I think he might too, but I think he might have to wait a while :-|




And in other news tonight - I was delighted to receive comments from the granddaughter of the man who built the house I lived in as a child (that's me on the left in front of the car),

which the Bodensee house reminds me so much of,

and from the daughter of the man who designed the Tammy house for the Ideal Toy Corporation. She said she put many of the houses together as a child!!!

A tree house

A year or two ago, while I was staying with my mother, we were walking up the main street of her town and went past a children's clothing and toy shop which was closing. In the window was this tree house. It was on sale, and we went in to have a closer look. We both liked it, so Mum said she would buy it for me.

I could have packed it to freight up to Darwin, but in fact it is still sitting in my mother's living room - she loves it, with all the little people who now inhabit it.


Right at the top lives a family of owls. There are three youngsters, and Papa Owl is giving two of them a flying lesson. The one in the yellow jacket tried perching right on top of the tree trunk, where the branches fan out, but couldn't keep his balance yet and kept falling off (to save his dignity, I did not photograph his falls).
(These chairs and tables came with the house.)


One floor down lives a family of squirrels. Mama Squirrel is very proud of her cosy floor rug, although it does show a common grey squirrel, and she and her family are proud to be red squirrels.
The squirrel children have invited some friends up, and luckily they have a hoist for those who can't climb.

On the ground floor, under the tree trunk, live the Badger and Rabbit families.


Mrs Badger and Mrs Squirrel are chatting inside, while their babies sleep.



(The wooden bed here also came with the house. The chairs and table at which Mrs Badger and Mrs Squirrel are sitting are ebay finds, along with the squirrels' chairs and sofa. I have no idea who made them, but the legs of the furniture look so like animals I had to put them in here.)


The squirrel children are encouraging their friends to come up. Little Miss Rabbit is being pulled up in the hoist; little Miss Squirrel is trying to persuade Master Badger to climb!


The animals are all Sylvanians, except for one rabbit visitor. I'm sure I'll have fun looking out for more furnishings and accessories for this house (and making bedding and cushions - one day, maybe!).

"Ultra-modern furniture" to make

I'm visiting my mother at the moment, where some of our childhood books are still stored. Among them is McCall's Golden Do-It Book - Things to make and do for boys and girls from 6 to 14, sent to my sister and me by my grandmother (the dolls house collecting one). It was first published in 1966, as you can probably tell from the colours!
I don't think we ever made this furniture, but here are settings for three kinds of living room. The book helpfully suggests that, after making these, "you may go on to redecorate the whole house." I'm not sure how making sofas and chairs is supposed to give you ideas for sinks and stoves and other kitchen and bathroom furniture, though!

The first is a "Conversation Corner":


The chairs are made from sponges, with hairpin legs. The lampshade is the cap from a tube of toothpaste, and the ashtray on the table is a button with raised edges. The floor vase is a nail polish bottle, and the rug is made of felt and rickrack. Here is the list of materials:


The other room settings are a formal living room:


and a family room:


I like the idea of making magazines from small pieces cut from the covers of old magazines. Although I've made magazines by printing scanned images, using pieces of old paper with the genuine colours and glossiness would be good too.

The colours in these illustrations are typical of the whole book, and of the period. Most projects are illustrated with drawings, as these are, by illustrator William Dugan. Our copy of the book is, I think, adapted for English publication, and has a publisher's address of 'Hamlyn House, Feltham, Middlesex'. It was, however, printed in Czechoslovakia, which intrigues me - perhaps that was cheaper than printing in England for a book with colour illustrations on every page.

Awards

I have received two awards recently which I haven't acknowledged yet: thank you to Doll Mum for this award:

(This blog is a dream!)

And thank you to Susan of Susan's Mini Homes for the Kreativ Blogger Award:


Both these awards came with rules for passing them on. I'm afraid I'm not very good at following rules! Instead, I am going to combine these with another kind of award I received from Sans many moons ago. Sans passed on a Reader's Award by choosing some readers of her blog, and scanning for them a book she associated with them. This is the one she chose for me:


A scene from Hansel and Gretel, as the infants class in my Erna Meyer school were reading it (it's also on the television in my Bodensee house).

As I love reading - blogs as well as novels and many other things - this is the kind of award that I love. So, for bloggers I am inspired by, and who have supported my blogging, here are some books I love which connect to things I enjoy about your blogs.


For The Shopping Sherpa, whose blog - including her Parade of Houses - inspired me to start blogging - here is a black and white book of plans for a mid-century modern (dismantleable) dolls' house.
Her collection has just been filmed by the Australian ABC TV program Collectors, so it will be on national television soon!













For Pubdoll, whose play on words in both English and Norwegian I love, as well as her sense of style, here is The Shield Ring, by English writer Rosemary Sutcliff. I think Annika Lund, who has the whole 'Little House on the Prairie' series, might also enjoy reading this story about 7 year old Bjorn, who lived at Buthars Mere in what is now the Lake District of England, in the late 11th century.













For Oese of Raum für Raum, I had to put two! Her scenes often have art books and travel books, and I think the dolls who read them, when they are home, would enjoy reading about where I live.
The other book, Through the Dolls' House Door by Jane Gardam, is a story about a dolls' house which has a dolls' house inside it. One of the children who play with it wanted to have a dolls' house in the dolls' house dolls' house too, and another one in that! But the other child said, "No. Stop. We'll get dizzy."






Mini Modern and Call of the Small have both inspired me greatly with the scenes in their Kaleidoscope houses, as well as other modern dolls houses they have. I haven't blogged about my Kaleidoscope house yet, but one day I will ... So for them, here are some genuine vintage Australian advertisements, from Fragments of the Everyday - A Book of Australian Ephemera: a 1938 ad for Grace Bros Department Store furniture, a 1954 ad for Dulux paint for Colourful Homes, and a ca 1965 ad for a Waltons Department Store sale - where the special item is the New American Action Sleeper/Lounge!




Sadly, Mini Modern has stopped blogging for now, but the archive of her two years of posting still has wonderful photos, informative and fun text, and a creative use of pieces from diverse sources. She keeps (jokingly) threatening to steal my Bodensee dolls house - now she's not blogging, I won't know where she is anymore, so I won't be able to keep tabs on her ;^)




Call of the Small is still blogging, and still buying wonderful modern dolls houses - she says her latest purchase, a wonderful 1950s Vero house from German ebay - may be my fault, as she loved my Vero bungalow, also bought from German ebay, so much! Amazing how many of us were watching the auction of the house CallSmall bought! I love it when fellow bloggers buy dolls houses I've also been watching (but not bidding on!!) on ebay, as then I can enjoy them too, as they furnish and photograph them.










Sarah Boirin of Vintage Dolls Houses lives in France and has a great collection of vintage Triang houses, among others. She is very knowledgeable about dolls house furniture, too, and has some wonderful pieces. So for her, here is the Exceptional Cat expressing an opinion on furniture styles, from Advanced French for Exceptional Cats, by Henri de la Barbe.










Nicola at Püppilottchens Spielzeug-blog first blogged about the Käthe Kruse dolls she loves, and now also about her dolls houses, including Lundby and a lovely Albin Schönherr house. She also likes vintage children's books, so I hope she will enjoy the ones I have chosen for other bloggers.
For Nicola, I have chosen a book published this year by Australian writer Cassandra Golds, The Museum of Mary Child. Heloise, the little girl in the book, was not allowed to play, and longed for a doll. One day she finds one under a floorboard, and loves her dearly. Later, she runs away from her home where love and play are not permitted, and finds herself living with a choir of young female orphans, who also make clothes for dolls.









Redrickshaw had a blog, but now posts only on flickr. She creates marvellous scenes and stories with her Grecon dolls and vintage dolls houses, and also loves vintage children's books and Chinese dolls. So for her, here are Miss Happiness and Miss Flower, two Japanese dolls who have a book of their own by Rumer Godden, but here appear in the 1966 edition of Little Plum, illustrated by Jean Primrose. They have put on clogs to come out and admire the snow. They walk up and down along the wall, leaving footprints smaller than a bird's.











Doll Mum has started blogging recently about her dolls and dolls houses, as well as her daughters' dolls. I especially love the stories she tells about how the dolls came in to her life. The dolls and the clothes she and her Nanna made for them bring back many memories of my beloved dolls and the clothes my Nana made for them!
This book was a favourite of mine when I was very young. Galldora is a homemade rag doll who has many adventures when her owner loses her (as she does frequently!).












Also very new bloggers are Florine of My Vintage Dollhouses and Other Treasures, and Louise of Grandmas Attic - Toys and Treasures. I'm enjoying seeing their posts about their vintage American dolls houses (though that's not all they have) - seeing the vintage American furniture in houses occupied by dolls I can appreciate it much more than in guides to dolls house furniture makers!














So here, for Florine and Louise, are Across the Rolling River, a story about Laura Ingalls Wilder's mother. I was excited to realise that my Californian great-grandmother's maternal ancestors were probably travelling through the same states at the same time as this family!
And also Stars of Fortune, a book written and illustrated by English writer Cynthia Harnett, which tells the story of the Washington children of Sulgrave Manor in Northamptonshire, when the future Queen Elizabeth I was imprisoned nearby.









Please feel free to pass on a Reader's Award to your readers!
I read many other blogs too, and appreciate receiving comments from my other followers and readers. I find so much support in this network of bloggers about dolls houses and miniatures, so thank you all, even if I have not named you individually here!

Tim at home (MA 15+, Contains scenes of nudity)

Tim has invited Johnno home to his bedsitter for a game of cards.


What's the design on his pack of cards?


Hmm, pin-ups! It seems that Tim is rather fond of images of women in bikinis (or less), as he has a few around the room, including his collection of lighters on the cabinet:


He also has a few men's magazines:


And what channels can he get on the TV?



Definitely adult only!

Tim's collection was inspired by a comment in a book about antique and vintage dolls houses and their furnishings. I cannot now remember which book, or who the author was, but she wondered whether all dolls house inhabitants would have been of such good character if, as well as The Times, the Bible and Punch magazine, they had had miniature Playboy magazines.

I think that erotica and pornography has probably always been made in miniature, as well as full size, but it was of course not intended for children.

All of my dolls houses were made for children to play with (and, in fact, have been played with by children!), and mostly I furnish and decorate them with pieces also made for children's play. I do use vintage buttons, jewellery, charms and other small items that were not originally made for dolls houses - but so have children done.

These miniatures, however - the mini lighters, the playing cards, the TV - were presumably made for adult men (or at least teenage boys). So they probably didn't often find their way into children's dolls houses. I found the mini cards on Australian ebay - the seller remembered "trying to get those tiny decks of nudie cards out of the claw machine at the funfair".

The TV is made in Hong Kong, and looks exactly the same as those which are souvenirs of Jersey, for example, or show fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel, as the one in the Bodensee house does:



(Tim's bedsitter is furnished with some Europa pieces, a ca 1960s Bodo Hennig bed/couch (and probably the wooden cabinet too), and a vinyl-covered sofa and armchair from the US (I don't know whether they're homemade or not). The room is 1960s German, and came with the room I have furnished with Dora Kuhn furniture. I made the miniature men's magazines myself, as I don't actually know of any vintage ones! As I don't have any 1960s pinup magazines (or any other vintage, come to that), they are composites of covers and centrefolds found on ebay, with entirely other images as back covers!)