To break the English winter I headed to Australia to spend Christmas and New Year with my family. My sister was working a few days so I knew I would need a project to keep me occupied whilst she was unavailable to drive us to the beach! Cue my summer project of updating my dollshouse that currently is stored at my parents house in Australia, upstairs away from the giant spiders! When I was much younger my grandfather built me a dollshouse and my mum decorated it. Electric lights were installed but these breaking during a house move stalled the project. The family that livedsin my dollshouse are Mr and Mrs Mouse who along with Mouse Jnr adopted Baby Otter! It’s been twenty years since the house’s first incarnation and despite living in the UK, the land of the dollshouse and attending various fairs with my sister, I’ve not been inspired on how to update mine.
Over the past few months I’ve been following the instagram of Little Linzi who remodels old fashioned dollshouses modernising them and her approach changed my way of viewing my dollshouse. Before I left the UK I ordered some oak wooden floors, miniture astroturf and liberty gift wrap to complete my summer project. The aim was to repaint the house inside and out and relay all the floors. I achieved this as well as a few other bits and bobs including extending the bathroom to make this bigger, a genius idea from my sister who can now add ‘miniature architect’ to her resume! I also painted a number of pieces of furniture from their traditional red wood colour to black which makes them much more modern and contrast against the new white walls and timber floors. I was lucky to purchase one of Little Linzi’s kits that included house plants and a miniature teepee for the house. Her kit is well put together with simple instructions and everything you need including glue and bluetack to put the house plant and miniature terrarium together. This is a venture Little Linzi has just started after the positive feedback she received from her instagram followers and the most recent kit she has put together is a modern bed and bedding by Fictional Objects.
Stage one of the renovation is complete and it is now about decoration and adding a bathroom suite, kitchen stuff and some lounge chairs. I went through all the furniture and things that were already in my dollshouse but most of it was broken or old and unfit for the new modern look that Mr and Mrs Mouse are going for! I’ll save stage two for another day and another summer project!
You can see images of Mr and Mrs Mouse setting up for the renovation on my instagram.
What childhood memories do you have? Are you refurbishing anything from childhood to use again?
PF xo
