The Manor House My First Dolls House Project......

I am sure there is an immutable law in Physics that for every action there is a reaction. Well the creation of my wonderfully organised garden work shop has had a reaction on my real home. We seem to be living in chaos. I had spread so much of my stuff all round the house that now every room looks like a bomb has hit it. So for the next week or so I will be decorating and re-organising the rooms I have vacated. 

In the meantime I thought I would share a trip down my dolls house Memory Lane beginning with my very first dolls house project, The Manor House by Dolls House Emporium.

 This was originally built for my daughter, Grace, as a Christmas present when she was eight years old. Then when she went off to University I got a bit broody and started playing around with it then decided to give it a complete re-decoration.

 I bought a lot of the furniture from DHE as I really didn't know then how many other sources there were for this wonderful hobby. I can remember being quite surprised by how expensive it was just to furnish one room. I was also surprised by how much enjoyment it gave me, all those lovely parcels arriving in the post!

 This house has been left exactly as I put it together so of course there are many things that I would change now, notice how stiff the towels and dressing gown look. The main trademark of all my projects began here though. I always try to stick to one colour scheme in each project.

 This house is most definitely pink and all the furniture is 'mahogany'. I like the flow sticking to a scheme gives a project, I want the houses to have a continuity when you open them, I like that control of the scene. 

 The kitchen marked a change in my approach as I had discovered by the time I reached this room that Ebay was a huge resource for dolls house miniatures. I discovered Bespaq miniatures and bought what I thought then were absolute top of the range pieces. I remember feeling incredibly guilty by the price of these kitchen units but by now I was hooked and expanding my tastes and sellers.

 Ebay seemed full of lovely people who made, actually made, clothes, hat boxes, cakes and a thousand and one other things for dolls houses of every type. A whole new world had opened up to me, there was no going back.

 I also decided that I would have cats in the house. I was very much a cat person then and bought quite a few by Heidi Ott I think. I was still to discover Blogland so I don't have any record of where I sourced everything in this house but most of them are available from DHE or Ebay.

 I have used standard dolls house lights in all the rooms and it still works amazingly.

On the outside are flowers again by DHE that still look vibrant today although the tacky wax is not always as tacky as it could be.

By the end of this project I was itching to start another, it had been so much fun and I absolutely loved tracking down pieces for the interior. I felt a real sense of achievement that I had actually finished a house and it looked nice.

I wanted to do it again!

I think I will always keep this house as it is now because it shows how my houses started. Of course there is so much I could improve upon. It is filled with items I would probably not buy today and my own personal input is minimal but it is where I discovered my hidden creativity because in my next project I began to think of ways I could make things for myself, I started looking at every day objects in a totally different way and for the first time in many years I had something that was all for me!!