Monday 10 December 2012

.Things I'm Crushing...Dollhouses.

I've showed you the dollhouse so far. We've got lots of big wall and floor spaces to play with and I'm flooded with ideas to get decorating with. The problem is, that I like too many different styles and designs! I've just got to settle on a basic colour scheme and get to work based on that I think.

Anyway, I wanted to share some of the cool dollhouses that I've come across in my research. The traditional hip roofed dollhouses are lovely, but there are some mega-cool, modern ones out there too that I can't go past...here are some that have caught my attention:

Love how bright and funky this is from Modern Mini Houses:

The interior design of this house blows me away! Although the house is a lot more traditional looking than ours would be, I'd die to be able to decorate it as well as this lady has. The intricate detail she has included is amazing - check out the close-up photos of each room underneath...she even has a sewing room!!! (From Mousehouse.) I don't think I'll get close to that much detail in our house, but it has given me some great ideas.

This one is cute from Hilda Grahnat. Shows how the simple rectangle shape can still come to life when decorated and filled with furniture.
 I came across this amazing house on Etsy from Qubis Haus. This was our absolute very favourite and if it didn't cost over $600 we would have snapped it up! See how the walls can move to different places using the slots in the floor and roof? I love it so much. This was probably the main source of inspiration for the rectangle, flat roof look we went for. This shop also sells really cool furniture that comes made from individual blocks with magnets on the sides so that you can pull them apart and create new pieces of furniture - ingenious and so much potential for creativity.
I always love the things that Made By Joel creates. They are modern and basic and achievable but never lacking in style.
He also shares some great furniture he has made himself using wire, wood, fabric and a hot glue gun - love it! Did you know that dollhouse furniture costs an absolute fortune and most of it is really ugly? We've decided to get the house painted and decorate the walls for Christmas with a few little bits of furniture for now, but leave the rest for other birthdays and Christmases and slowly build up the collection. Plus, I want to have a go at making a few things myself and don't have the time to do everything before Christmas. The kids can use their imagination for now and make their own furniture! I think with a bit of time and imagination I can come up with some cool little pieces to include.
Also found on Mini Modern, this dollhouse made me smile. The family are perfect.
And check out their spectacular pool!! Once I saw it, I knew we had to include one too! The naked, skinny dipping family makes me laugh :)
This is sweet - looks as though it is made from a bookshelf. Very simple if you didn't want to bother with building anything yourself.
 
Another modern style house - love the boxiness and big, open rooms.
 
This house from The Land of Nod was also high on my "would buy it if I didn't care about how much I spent" list. Isn't it cool? This shop probably has the best furniture that I've seen around so far so I might use it for inspiration to make my own or splurge and buy a set or two for Lil's next birthday.
As for people to occupy the house...I'm going to leave that up to the kid's imagination for now. We've got tonnes of wooden people below and I might paint a few like Jessica from Running with Scissors has done. The house is pretty big - each square room measures about 30cm x 30cm. So a barbie can just stand up in the house - but her head hits the roof! We also have a few Polly Pockets, Kimmi Dolls and Fisher Price Little People floating around so there will be plenty of people to live in the house for now and if I see anything else that I really like along the way, I'll pick it up. I don't want to rush into fully finishing and furnishing everything for the sake of having it done for Christmas because I know that I'll discover other cool things along the way and want to be able to include them over time.
And, just incase we aren't totally over dollhouses...I'm keeping this up my sleeve for a future Winter school holiday project - making dollhouses with popsicle sticks! This could be so much fun and I think the kids would really get stuck into completely handmaking the house, furniture and people to live inside.
What about you? Do you have a dollhouse in your family? Where did you get your furniture? What dolls do your kids use in it? Did you decorate it yourself - let me know what things you love the most!

You can find these pics and other cool Dollhouses on my Dollhouse Pinterest Board.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Great ideas there Toni! Like the idea of letting it evolve over time :)

Crafty Mama said...

I love these!! They remind me of the Farnsworth house? We have a Lundby dollhhouse, and it seems I am the only one that plays with it ;)You have inspired me to take up yet another hobbie ;)

Noelle said...

They are amazing!
I really wanted a dollhouse when I was a kid, but my mum came up with the awesome idea of using the bottom two shelves of my wardrobe as a dollhouse. They were huge shelves so I was able to create an awesome two-storey mansion, making my own furniture out of cardboard. My sister made one in her room too and our Barbies used to visit eachother :)

Jessica said...

I remember we had a hand-me-down doll house that was about 1m square flat on the floor with a removable roof and half. Dozen rooms. I loved looking down into it, though our poor Barbies used to be able to see over the walls and there was no way they were going to fit through the doors so we used to make them jump the walls instead. When they sat down on the floor (way too big for the furniture) their feet nearly touched the opposite wall. I loved it though!

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