The ultimate craft project

I have had my dollhouse for 21 years now. It is the ultimate ongoing project.

When I got it as a Christmas present the dollhouse market was enjoying a resurgence of popularity. In the years that followed I collected furniture from many different cities. Vancouver had a few great miniature stores at the time. One fantastic antique store in Steveston, Richmond had a huge collection of tiny furniture and supplies for dollhouse enthusiasts. North Vancouver also had a dollhouse furniture store that catered to collectors and sold everything you could possibly need to outfit your house. There was also a great craft store in Richmond Centre Mall back in the day that sold miniature furniture. And when my parents would take us on summer road trips I always collected pieces from stores in other cities. The stores that I knew of in Vancouver are gone now. And although I have worked in childcare for almost 15 years, I haven't found a little girl who had a real, old-fashioned dollhouse. Kids only have Barbie dream houses now.

Anyway, I shot some pics of my house the other day when I was visiting my parents for Christmas. Unfortunately I couldn't take any shots of the front of it because it is currently tucked away in a corner.

I never really played with it. People always ask me, "where are the people?" I never found it necessary to buy a family for my house. I had little interest in playing with it. All I ever wanted to do was set it all up, take it all down and then set it up again in a different way. When I got older and began to "renovate" my house, I finally had to choose which rooms would be for what. It was definite as I was choosing wallpaper and flooring and would no longer be using the tiny bathroom as the poor, adopted maid's room. Or the large living room as a kitchen.

Short of actually building the house, I did everything else. It took years and it is still not finished. I shingled the roof - tiny shingle by shingle. I wired it so that all the tiny lamps plug in and light up. I wallpapered it, put in the flooring, spackled the outside walls and painted the whole thing. It really did take me years to do.

I still need to hinge the doors, which I have successfully put off doing for years because the hinges and the nails are approximately the size of fleas. Try using a real hammer on nails the size of fleas and you'll understand why it takes so damn long to get something like this done.

Anyway, the days of collecting furniture for it are over since it appears that craft and children's stores no longer cater to dollhouse folk. Luckily all I really still need is a new fridge. The one in the house doesn't look right.

I'll hang onto the house in case I have my own daughter. That was always my plan. Even when I was little, I was decorating it with the knowledge that I would someday give it to my own little girl. If I don't have a daughter, I sure won't be saving it for another 30 years until I have a granddaughter. I'll put it on the ebay market and sell it to the highest bidder.

But for now it is still fun to set it up for my Mom at Christmas (takes me nearly three hours to get all the tiny pieces in their place) and pull out all the bits and remember where they came from. I really hope that I have the chance to pass it on to my own girl and watch her spend hours tinkering with all the pieces like I did when I was little.