Some more that got away ...

I have just received a dolls house I bought on Australian ebay last year; it has been sitting, packed, at my sister's place since we picked it up in October, but for one reason and another, has only just made the long journey to Darwin. I'll post about it soon, but in the meantime, here are some that I would love to have in my collection.


I bid on this little Triang house today, and was outbid by $1! It's in HO (1:87) scale, and made for Triang model railways. It looks rather like the Triang 'Daisy' bungalow of 1969-71, I think - and would take up so little space!



This lovely 1920s homemade house was listed on Australian ebay in Sydney last week. The seller said that it was built by a returned soldier from WW1 during the 1920s, and was presented to a child at Easter 1930, with the date painted underneath.

From the outside, it looks like many Tudor-style houses made during that period.


It opens at the back with four small doors, and the roof also takes off:


Inside is what makes this house really special, parquetry flooring and wooden detailing done with superb workmanship.



It came with furniture, some of which might have been original. It looks very interesting - I would love to have been able to examine it!


Sadly, I was outbid on this one by one bid, in the final seconds of the auction. I hope it has gone to an appreciative home!

This house is one I didn't bid on, but would have if I'd been able to afford the freight. It is also a homemade Australian house, this time from South Australia. From the outside, it doesn't look like much:


and the inside is not very exciting architecturally either:


What I really loved was the original 1970s wallpaper and carpet!

The carpet in the bedrooms looks exactly like the carpet in my mother's living room!



Isn't the wallpaper and carpet in the living-room groovy?


And so are the wallpapers in the bathroom and kitchen. The flooring here reminds me of my mum's place too!



And I don't recognise the furniture - perhaps it's also handmade?

While I'm posting photos that other people took, of houses I don't own, here's another house that attracted my attention, which I would love to see. It was listed in Queensland as pick-up only - I often ask the seller if they would pack a house for pickup by a courier, but in this case I think I was actually being sensible about how much space I have in the house I live in, and decided not to enquire.


This is not typical architecture for Queensland, where many houses are built on stilts for safety from floodwaters, and most have verandahs and louvre windows to give relief from the tropical heat.



It looks homemade to me, perhaps in the 1930s? And look at the detail - the wonderful wooden flooring, and all the built-in furniture inside - and crazy paving and a compass outside!



Sometimes I wish I had an unlimited budget* and unlimited space, but (1) that's not the case! and (2) I suspect that could get a bit boring. So it's good to have a virtual collection, as well as a real one!


* Did you know that Barbra Streisand collects dolls' houses? I discovered this by searching Google images for Silber and Fleming!

Swantje Köhler's Lexikon der Puppenstuben und Puppenhäuser

Today, the new issue of Dolls Houses Past and Present online magazine came out. I have an article in it on Amersham, an English company that made dolls houses between about 1930 and the early 1950s.
The company had links to a German company (I won't go into all the detail here - it's quite complicated!), and Swantje Köhler sent me an email after reading my article - she very kindly included her entry on the German company from her book Lexikon der Puppenstuben und Puppenhäuser (Encyclopaedia of Roomboxes and Dolls Houses).

This wonderful book was only published in 2004, but is out of print, and quite hard to find (Amazon says "Currently unavailable. We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock"). When I wrote to thank Swantje, and ask if she was planning a second edition, this is what she said,

I would like to make a second issue of the lexicon as I have so much more information and so many never published catalogues. But the publishers think, there is no need.

Tell all collector people to ask the Wohlfarth publishing company (Info@wohlfarth.de ) for copies (they don't have a single one) but to let them know, that there is an interest.

This time I want to add an English translation too, for all my English collector friends.

So I guess we'd better get busy emailing the publisher!

A Sunshine Award

Recently, I have received the Sunshine Award from Florine at My Vintage Dollhouses and Other Treasures, and from Carol at My Realitty. Thank you both!


I am supposed to pass it on to 6 other bloggers who bring sunshine to my life. Well, you know I'm not very good at sticking to rules!
The other day in the library at my new office, I found a book called The Australian Home Beautiful, which has lots and lots of photos from the magazine of the same name. Wow! My eyes certainly lit up when I saw the book - so many genuine, contemporary photos of homes and furnishings in Australia over the last 80 years. So, instead of just passing this award on (though you're very welcome to take it - it's a lovely flower!) I've chosen a photo for each of 6 new bloggers and 6 old friends.
I hope you will like the sunshine and flowers I've chosen for you!


For Louise of Grandma's Attic - Toys and Treasures, flowers in a dining room of 1930:


For Oese of Raum für Raum, flowers and a sun-like mirror in a 1936 living/dining room:


For Florine of My Vintage Dollhouses and Other Treasures (who said we can't give an award back to the person we received it from?!?), a sunny 1930s bathroom:


For Amy, of Amy's Miniatures and Smalls, an advertisment from the 1940s, because it was her husband who gave her her Lundby house for Christmas:


(But I think her husband is not hamfisted like this one: the ad ends: "You can be sure it's a Pyrex household!")

For Troy of Tulsa Tiny Stuff, flowers over a 1942 fireplace:


For Daniel of www.danielagnew.com, a wartime (1940s) bedroom with a doll and a stuffed dog:


For Helene of Pubdolls, flowers over a fireplace as dreamed of by stylists during WW2:


For Carol, of My Realitty, a car for a lady driver of 1950! (Wonder what Colette would think of the matching car, hairdo and outfit?)


For Pandora, of SmallStuff Miniatures, a yellow sink from the 1950s! I've sometimes wondered about the brightly coloured plastic and metal dolls house kitchen appliances - well, it seems that you really could get a sink in Primrose Yellow, blue, pink, aqua, green, etc! I don't remember ever seeing one - I wonder if they weren't very popular, or didn't last long - or were just seen as very dated by the 60s and 70s, and replaced as soon as possible?


For Nicola of Püppilottchen's Toy Blog, a lifesize 1970s flowery sofa and chairs, just like her dolls'!

For Diepuppenstubensammlerin, who shares my love of Erna Meyer dolls and shares her amazing info about German makers like Erna Meyer, Bodo Hennig and VERO, flowers in a 1970s bathroom!

For The Shopping Sherpa, who, as well as her blog, has just taken on managing Dolls Houses Past and Present, some sunny cushions in a bedroom she might like:


Thank you all, and all the other blogs I read and follow, for brightening my life :-)

GranJean's Gallery, Unicorn Cottage

As I've mentioned, two of my dolls houses (the Cupboard House and the Lines Country Villa (and the Lines Letchworth which is my sister's) were gifts from my grandmother. She began collecting dolls houses in about 1964. I'm not sure exactly how many dolls houses she had in her collection, but here are some of her others.


I'm sure many of you will recognise these - at the left, there is a Hobbies house, and next to it is a Triang Princess dolls house, which was available from about 1932 to 1957. On the far right is a Triang No 50. The one in the middle looks familiar, but I don't recognise it - can anyone help?

My grandmother kept her dolls houses and dolls in a bedroom at the end of a corridor in her house, Unicorn Cottage. We called it GranJean's gallery (one of my cousins christened it). I don't know if there are any photos of it, but I've just found a clipping of an article about it that was published in the Cobham News in 1972.

In the article, my grandmother said that she was still working on furnishing the Princess dolls house, and wanted to make it homespun with a Welsh flavour. Did she ever do this? I don't remember seeing the inside of this house, so I don't know.

Today, these four houses sit on a high shelf in the Brighton Toy & Model Museum:


UPDATE: Annina has visited the museum and taken much better photos of the Hobbies house and Triang Princess, as well as some other wonderful exhibits! Thank you, Annina :-)

This museum also houses her antique French school, which I remember clearly from GranJean's Gallery:


and also some of her dolls ( I don't think all of these were hers):


I wish I had photos of the dolls house room. The article says that "she has a modern doll's house complete with all electrical mod cons, its plastic glasses contrasting with those of fine Bristol glass in the oldest house." I remember a plastic house with a swimming pool - perhaps it was a Lundby house? Also, according to the Cobham News, there was "a special little doll's house where [children] can touch and play as well as look, and she has peopled it with mouse-characters." I do remember the mice - but I thought they lived in the room across the corridor ...

My grandmother sometimes showed her collections, and I have some photos of her dolls on display.



These photos were taken in 1960 and 1964, before she really started collecting dolls houses, so they show mainly her international and antique dolls.



Also, on a chair in the drawing room, her bears and her doll Bambina - Bambina is a Martha Chase doll, but had a wig added. (My grandmother is standing in the photo on the left; the two women in the photo on the right are my mother's governess and her sister.)

Brinca Dada Dolls House and Dolls on Daddy Types

I follow Daddy Types' blog as he has a good eye for retro kids' toys and furniture, including dolls houses, and also vintage kids' books. He's just posted about a dolls house shown at the 2010 Toy Fair, the Emerson House by Brinca Dada, and a family of dolls house dolls they've also put out.

Apparently, they sold their prototype on ebay in December:


The Brinca Dada website says the dolls house will be available in (northern hemisphere) spring - and they will also have furniture for it! It's in 1:18 scale (also known as 3/4" scale). I wonder which of my blogging friends will buy one first?

Macrame and Matchboxes

My new office space shares a floor with a resource library for teachers. I had a look along the shelves in a break from unpacking my boxes, and, amazingly, found a book called Miniature Macrame for Your Dollhouse!


I had been thinking that my 1970s dolls houses could use some tiny macrame objects, like plant holders:


or wall hangings:


(this is an owl),

or even a swinging chair:


which this tiny Erna Meyer doll seems to be finding a little precarious.

I've never made macrame, and don't really like it! but I do remember that lots of people had it in the 70s and 80s (this book was published in 1981). I can't imagine why this teacher resource library had a book about miniature macrame - I would have thought life-size macrame would be easier for kids to make, and produce gifts for their mums or dads.

I think this guide to making models from matchboxes and matches, also in this library, would have been borrowed more often:


This booklet is published by matchmakers Bryant & May (their matches are called Redheads in Australia, and (apparently) Beehive in New Zealand). As you can see from the cover, some of the models and techniques are quite sophisticated, but the book also includes instructions for making basic matchbox furniture:


as well as furniture made from matches:


I can't see a publication date, but the booklet refers to a 1989 Australian Standard for safety matches, so I'd guess that this dates from the 1990s. The furniture illustrated could have been made at any time in the last hundred years, though!