Windows

 I'm a bit of an architecture buff.  It bugs me to watch TV shows where the exterior and interior do not match up.  I always have a floorplan in mind for the places in my fiction.  

 Most dollhouses have an unseen area, where stairs and closets exist. They are usually set up so it can be assumed you are standing in that area as you play.  There are windows on at least one existing wall, even if they're just printed on.

My current bookshelf dollhouse has been bothering me.  There are no windows on any of the three existing walls. Do my dolls live in an underground bunker?! 

I picked up these decorations at the after-holiday sales, but only managed to find three.  The third one isn't pictured, but it had a pointier top and the word down the center was "MERRY".  I hoped to find more, to put doors on the back of each room and move the unseen area into my apartment wall.  No luck there.  So I figured out a way to give my dolls a window in each room.

First order of business was to take off the words and greenery. 

Then I marked in black the areas not needed and broke the "wood" apart.  This created nine windows that don't match each other and aren't symmetrical unto themselves.  If you followed my soap opera and remember Joe's job, you know building with reclaimed materials is nothing new to my dolls. 

The bookshelf house is continuing that tradition.

I glued calendar pictures to them so the dolls would have a nice view.

Here's the pantry and dining room with their new windows!  Each room got a window and they're far from perfect, but my inner pedant has quit fussing.  Honestly, I'd prefer to stick fake doors on the back wall and pretend the unseen rooms are inside my apartment wall, but this works.

Always a work in progress.

Pikes' Addition - Part Three

Time to put views in those rear windows.  I got out all my scenery pictures from magazines and books, sorted them all over my bed, and decided against all of them. 

I ended up using the sky posterboard.  It doesn't look much bluer than the wall would have, but I'm hoping when I do photo stories, the details will show up.

I decided to keep the big "hot tub" and put the telescope on the deck.  I also moved "wardrobe" and my laundry into the corner.  The big hot tub touches both houses and makes them feel more connected, somehow.  Nice view of the barn from the hot tub.  

The black shelves have been switched around a bit.  On top, the Smiths and Witch's Cove sets await their next curtain call.  Below it, we have Sarcastic Fringehead's studio (needs wallpaper).  Then Sulu's greenhouse with the whole fam damily in it.

The Eaton/Cooper clan hangs out in the new Medical Center space.  One side will serve as various exam rooms and the other as a waiting room.  Below it is the grocery's Aisle of Value and checkouts.  On bottom, the folding dollhouse sets and the sauna. 

The remainder of the sky posterboard will serve for daytime shots on the deck.  This is where I hit a stopping point - I needed "wallpaper" and human-size trash bags.

The wallpaper.  One is for the bathroom and studio, one for kitchen and bedroom. 

Starry sky!  Now they have something non-stalkerish to look at with the telescope!

The kitchen is done.  Trimming around those arched windows was hard.  Swearing happened.

Bedroom.  Clearly, Pike is secure in his masculinity.

Bathroom was easily the most difficult.  Built in fixtures, arched window.  That pattern does have a greenish cast to it, so it works with the teal window.  Added a marble border to hide a totally mismatched seam.

The studio.  Zenobia and Whitney wanted the flowers, but Tanner and Finnick vetoed that.  I guess they aren't as secure in their masculinity as their father.

The house is pretty much done.  But reorganizing the doll storage and cleaning the rest of my apartment after doing all this remains.  That should be fun.  NOT! 

 

Pikes' Addition - Part Two

The work continues.  The walls have been stripped down to the plastic.  Working around the built in plumbing was quite a challenge - at least I managed to swivel the shower!  

 I tried to do the bathroom with a tropical green leaf border, using some of the contact paper I used to redo Sulu's Greenhouse.  I'm not happy with it, but I'm letting it sit for now.  

The hearth room got white marble.  A television inside that fireplace pops up when I hit a button.  Seriously?!  I know people put TVs over the mantel, but not if there's a window there! 

I tried to make the bathroom look better by painting the window in a tropical green.  Definitely gonna have to find some "wallpaper" that features pink, burgundy, and green.  This is just hideous as is.

Work moves into the bedroom.  All the assorted things displaced by rearranging furniture get crammed into the big dollhouse.  I had to move the tall bookshelf that houses Sulu's Greenhouse, the barn, and the grocery store to fit the coffee table in there - I want height for my play, because the dollhouses aren't the only things affected by aging.

Coffee table provides the height and a nice parking garage beneath!  My doll clothes bin and laundry basket fit nicely in the space between, although I might move them over by the closet. The addition has a tiny hot tub on that deck, but I'm partial to the big one I repurposed from an LOL playset. 

Day three.  I tossed all that stuff onto the bed and started moving rooms around.  Just outside of the picture is the foot of my bed - you can see it in the earlier picture.  This means the height isn't really an issue, because I can use the bed to be up and down, but getting decent lighting is a challenge. 

Notice I removed the attic bathroom - which I think I've used in one story post this entire time.  Mace and the littles have a bedroom there now.  (In-universe, Joe just took down the wall between rooms and repainted.  The slope is totally the underside of basement stairs.) 

Since the parents will be moving into the (very small) bedroom in the addition, I moved the twins into the attic bedroom.  The girls moved into the former kitchen, but in-universe they just redecorated.  More garage space and storage will go into vacated spaces.  

With that all squared away, I started sorting.  Pike and Rose-Grace's bed didn't fit, so they traded with Mace.  At least for now.  Experimenting with the placement of furniture in these rooms.  In universe, they've just remodeled the kitchen. 

Gonna have to purge some of this furniture, even with my plans to make some more sets on the tall bookshelf.  My purple bin just can't hold all that!  

Pikes' Addition - Part One

 Went out to hit the after-holiday markdowns and, as usual, stopped at Goodwill.  They had a huge (for them, anyway) assortment of dolls and doll stuff.  I was picking through, tossing things in my cart or back on the shelf, when I spotted it.  A 2011 Barbie Dream Townhouse, with a box full of furniture taped securely to the roof.  For 16 dollars. 

This is the official Mattel photo.  Well, one of them... 

The major draws for me are the affixed kitchen and the fireplace.  As my Wicked Cool Toys dollhouse ages, the floors have begun to sag.  Which means the large appliances like to fall on the dolls while I'm setting up a scene.  And the fireplace speaks for itself.

Also, the dollhouse my sister got me from a yard sale is breaking bit by bit, which will leave Mace and the littles without bedrooms and Sarcastic Fringehead without a studio.  

I argued with myself for a bit, knowing what a major project getting this into Barbieville would be, but I decided the Pikes are going to build an addition!   So I put back all the other doll stuff (except the donor bodies) and got the house + box.

Here it is, taunting me from the center of my living room. Those walls are cardboard glued to plastic, and all kinds of "personalized" by the former owner.  Those of us who rescue orphan dollhouses are familiar with the problem.

First order of business, because it's the easiest, is to sort and clean the contents of the box. This thing is blurry because it fainted while I was taking a picture.  The parts that snap together to hold it upright have failed me.  Further research is required. 

Looks like Barbieville will be getting an eye doctor.  

Assorted food items, dishes, and cookware.  I'm loving the Thanksgiving turkey, giant salad, and huge banana split.  

A couple of beds, a fridge, things to sit on, a desk/shelf of some sort, a table and a small hot tub.  One of the things to sit on is a child sized eye exam station.  You know, the thing that Doc switched lenses around and asks "which is better" 500 times.  Definitely getting an eye doctor.

Back view of the house.  I'm not real concerned about how it looks, since it's going to be up against the wall.  the flower stickers in the window boxes fell off already.  Now the real fun begins.... 

Never Organized Enough

I've been reading about people using their stay-at-home time to reorganize and deep clean their homes.  Even though I try to keep things fairly well organized and do a deep clean in months divisible by three, I decided to see what I could do.  The area most in need of this was Barbieville.

Everything on this tall shelf is doll related.  I did have some non-doll items here and two of the vehicles in my desk area, but decided to remedy that situation.  Now, the only dolls outside of this area are the BOUS*, two Monster High gals, and Edna Mode.

At the border between Barbieville and Desk Area, we find the printer shelf.  The lowest shelf used to be a parking lot for the Jeep and Golf Cart.  It now holds coloring books, crayons, and my bin of Lego blocks.  The upper and third shelves used to hold assorted paper for the printer, phone books, and toy VWs.  Second shelf now holds my board games.  Upper shelf holds phone books and printer paper.  Top surface is, of course, the printer.  Keeping it company are the Pocahontas twins, Edna Mode, and Freddy Krueger.  Rusty has invaded Barbieville.

My VW toys took over this knick knack shelf.  Only the almighty Sam Booze survived the invasion.  (Wine from Two Paddocks, Sam Neill's winery.)

Odd combination of loose cards.  One of these games doesn't even live here!

Now I gotta figure out where to put all the homeless knick knacks that have invaded my pop culture shelf!  They done knocked Negan down and threw two other guys on the floor!  The carnage! 

*Barbies Of Unusual Size include Rusty (My Size Barbie) and 18 inch Pocahontas twins 

Look What My Sister Made Me Do

One thing I've learned since embracing the whole doll blogging thing: Nothing is ever done.

This is my doll area.  When I first moved in here, I had the dollhouse nice and snug in that corner, but got busted for "blocking an emergency egress".  Mind you, I'm on the second floor and there are three other windows right there, but they own the place.  Gotta follow their rules.

If you'll remember, I recently bought a disassembled dollhouse to make into backdrops because my space is so limited.  At least if I want to have anything resembling an actual apartment.

My sister showed up with this in her back seat.  She reads my blog and thought it could be a nice home for one of those couples planning to marry.  It'll need a makeover, but that'll be a whole 'nother project.  Today it's about making room!  

I had been debating for a while pulling that desk out of there.  It's not big enough for Sunburst and sags in the middle, so I can't line up the walls for The Overlook.  YANK!  It's outta here! 

Lunch Break. 

The new house fits nicely where I had my board games and coloring books.  Once that desk was gone, the rest of the job pretty much fell together.  It just took a good while because I reorganized as I went.  The shelves my board games were on fit very nicely under the window sills.  I have no idea what sort of shelf it is, though, since it was a yard sale find.  

Quitting for supper.  Everyone is present and accounted for, all the big stuff is in place (except the teal bin that serves as wardrobe) and now it's fiddly stuff and hauling out the trash.  Yes, that's the table that served as the Pikes' deck/carport.  They sacrificed it for the Greater Good. 

I took the movable shelves out of one unit and put them into the other for all my little bins and set building pieces.  The former Frito-Lay display has outlived its use and will probably go in the recycling.  And I managed to break Albus's camper.  Apparently, that floor wasn't meant to hold 200 pounds.  I guess he really does have to move now.

My open-for-use backdrops and the new house wait for the next project.  The house is actually meant to be a department store (Kacy's).  I'll get into more detail about it when I share that project.

The shell of one shelving unit holds my games, coloring books, vintage VWs, and two display dolls.  I think I'm gonna invest in another tall unit like what's beside it. Can never have too many shelves. The pink thing is full of Lego blocks. The clear bin is my tool box. Lots of clean up work to do and I'll be ready to tackle the next job.

Oh, yeah, and... 

THANKS, RITA! 

Demolition and Donors

WARNING! NAKED HEADLESS DOLLS!

I know what you're thinking.  Demolition?  Will we see explosions?  Sadly, no.  The explosions will be imaginary.  When I got my park backdrops, I wasn't happy with the skyscrapers.  Barbieville is not a city.  My dolls are, for the most part, rural folk.

I even wrote them into the story as a failed effort by the former mayor to stimulate the economy and change the image of the town to visitors.  But there are still way too many of them!  What to do...  I spied something at Michael's on one of my rare trips west of my sister's house.

A cartoon light bulb appeared above my head.

Since I don't have thin enough paper for this part, I used the clear plastic from doll packaging.  Trace the tree line onto the plastic and cut along the line.  The plastic also let me use a marker that would have bled through paper.

This is what I found at Michael's!  Sky poster board!  I repeated the trace and cut, this time following the admittedly rough stencil I'd made out of the plastic.

Glued it into place and filled in the places where buildings still peeked through with white fingernail polish (because I don't have paint) to match the clouds.

And now roughly half of the buildings are gone.  The sky's got a lot more clouds over there, but we've all seen real skies look like that, so I'm good with it.  Mayor Rose-Grace Pike assures me those buildings were all vacant, since so few millionaires want to invest in a lakeside farming community.

Cue the imaginary explosions as we move on to my other project. 

WARNING! NAKED HEADLESS DOLLS!

My collection of body donors.  I prefer my dolls to have at least nine points of articulation: neck, shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees.  More joints are a bonus! I sure ain't gonna complain if a doll has more! I pick up possible donors at thrift shops and clearance sales.  Vapid Face Sufferers and those with giant noggins get decapitated.  Sometimes one will just move right into Barbieville as is.

I do avoid certain lines because they are too skinny to share clothes and/or have inhuman skin tones. Some lines are child height but have mature features, also, so I avoid them.  I do have it on good authority that two of the skinny lines have males that are of acceptable girth, but I've not found any.

The first batch of candidates for transplant are my Fives.  They only have the standard neck, shoulder, and hip joints.  Bertie and Esperanza think the spot a match for one of them! 

Bertie has elbows and knees!  Not real lady-like, but that's a whole other thing.

My Five + Clicks are next.  They have softer plastic legs that bend a bit and click into place at the knee.  Most of these are ten inches or less.  Young teens and children in my Barbieville.  Roxy (not pictured here) is a gymnast Stacie from the 90s and Anakin (also not pictured) is technically an action figure.  Both are rare finds! There is currently an articulated Extreme Sports Stacie on the market, but I'm not likely to get her before the Family Christmas Ban* happens, so I'm gonna tell Santa about her.

Stacie didn't gain any articulation is this head swap, but she did get rid of that mutant thumb and bent elbow.  She's happy and the mutant thumb body will become a donor.

Tris is my only Seven.  She doesn't have elbows, but that lovely tattoo makes me reluctant to body swap her.  One of the donor bodies is a Seven.  Donor bodies can be anything above a Five.

Lots of Seven + Clicks. None of them matched any donors.  Need more in darker skin tones.

Guinness almost matches and Frodo is just laughing at me.

Floppy Boyz are in the house!  These three are Nines, but the joints are loose.  The Boy was messing with John and Hank, calling them Floppy Boyz.  The name stuck even though Esmeralda is a not a boy.  

Esmeralda is a pretty good match for the Seven donor body, but she chose to remain floppy. Not willing to give up them elbows.

*My family has a rule: After a certain date, we are not allowed to buy anything gift-worthy for ourselves.  I do try not to break it, and almost every time I have, it was doll-related.