Hobby & Craft Forums

I've been meaning to post in here for a while now, so as we have a new member that is wiring a dollshouse and hopefully he may persuade his wife to join to share her house with us as it grows.

I have been an avid dolls house and miniature enthusiast for 15 years now. I have 2 large dolls houses at the moment and 1 half size one, I also have one which is supposed to be a pub, but I haven't got around to doing that up yet, and a shop which at one time was an antique shop, but the bits nd pieces got packed away when we moved house and never unpacked again.
I make my own soft furnishings for my houses using a pleater, which is great fun and I would recomend everyone have a go at this, I also make fimo food for dollshouses which occasionally I sell on ebay. I used to have a website and an ebay shop selling doll shouse miniatures, and at the time, there was not a great deal of other sellers - so I did well. Now there are many, and as there are only a few wholesale suppliers, apart from the handcrafted items - many sell the same thing.

I particularly love antique dolls houses and am the proud owner of a Triang Stockbroker house which was made around 1950. It is 4 foot long and takes up a lot of space. I waited years to own one and about 5 years ago, my Other half took out bank loan and bought me one.

This is a photo of it.

I will at some point try and get a photo of the rooms inside.

My other house is one which I bought 10 years ago from a craft fair. It had a wooden frame, but oddly, the walls were all made of polystyrene. Over time, I replaced the polystyrene with wood, I gave it a mock tudor effect and made a basement for it to match the look of the rest of the house, in which I put the kitchen and maids quarters. I am always changing the look of the inside of this house, forever changing the wallpaper and style of the rooms, probably because I can't do it to my real full size house.

Over the years I have collected many miniatures for my houses which fill drawers and cupboards to the brim. I haven't even a clue how many houses I could fill with all I have.

I will add some pictures of the second house and some of the food I make shortly.

how cool! Looks great although with my clumsy hands, I'd best stay away from dolls houses lol!

A bank loan though? Jaysus, surely they're not that expensive?

The Stockbroker house was worth a lot at the time and we paid just under £1000 for it, now the value of these particular houses has dropped considerably. Mine has dropped even more than that lol because of a battle with woodworm. You can pick up a run of the mill dolls house for anything from £40 to whatever you want to pay really. I used to do them up and sell them for Christmas presents, furnished and lit for around £200 for a collectors type - less for a childs and without the lights depending on the age of the child.

I love the look of dolls houses, though not into playing, fixing or making them. There is a shop near mum that sells them, and they come everything from a shop to a three storey town house mansion.

Ohh, that would be my idea of heaven. Our local dolls house shop closed down. (Both of them actually, but I only went to one of them). Where does your mum live Shane? *Secretly planning a trip to visit Shanes mum and look at his baby photos before popping into the local dollshouse shop*

She lives In Mablethorpe , about 90 minutes away from me in Lincoln, it's more of a seasonal (tat) gift shop however as they are quiet in the winter they seemed to have diversified a bit to include dolls houses. I think the 3 storey town house sold for about £300

OMG! £1000....I never knew they were that expensive!

Would it not be cheaper to learn how to make them yourself lol!

I have had a go but I'm not very good - cutting out the windows is nigh on impossible too. Anyway - the one in the picture above is as I say an antique, very collectable, hence me wanting it. There are a few more antique ones I would like but they take up a lot of room and you can end up spending a lot on the hobby so I try not to look anymore.

Although the maker is obviously in cloud cuckoo land - here is a dolls house priced at £3,000 http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Unique-new-handma ... 2a044668ae It won't fetch that though, because even though it is finished to a good standard, it would take something really special to reach a price like that.

Well it's very nice but not for 3k...makes me glad I'm not into dolls houses lol!