I thought I'd share more photos of my Dollhouse/Office Corner with you, since you saw a sneak peek of it yesterday over at Viviana's. : )
I've been wanting to create a space for my dolls for ages! I found this vintage one many months ago, but unfortunately the size of the rooms weren't big enough for my Blythes and they'd have to be sitting down all the time. (haha) The only place for it (in our tiny little house) was over my desk in my office "corner". So it would have to be mounted on the wall, but it's so heavy we we weren't too keen on that idea. I love the house (especially the roof!) but it wasn't the *perfect* solution I was looking for. (I'll still keep the house for now, maybe I'll have more room for it one day when/if we move.)
So I spent hours upon hours online searching for the perfect house, or shelf, or whatever that would work. I had seen many people use the IKEA shelves which are perfect with their 12x12 (?) cubbies, but I didn't have room for another one of those in our house (we have two already!) And I really wanted something unique.
I found this one with the super-amazing colored plexi walls.. it had the perfect mod look I wanted, but it was pricey. (sad face)
After hours of surfing, I finally stumbled onto this at Waybasics. I loved the modular look. I bought it in white and we (i.e. Ethan) FINALLY put it together over the holidays. It's made out of completely recyclable materials which I think is pretty cool (basically made out of paper!) After some reconfiguring of the office furniture, we realized we could set the dollhouse directly on the desk. (And hanging one of these Waybasic structures is a bit precarious due to the nature of the materials, i.e. it's not made of hardwood) The rest of the furniture is IKEA.
I loved that the scale of the rooms fit Blythe so well. She can stand up easily without bumping her head on the "ceiling". I also knew I wanted to cover many of the walls with patterned paper (I used vintage wallpaper and vintage wrapping paper, a lot of which was gifted to me by a sweet blog reader, Ngaire!)
I knew I needed to cover up the computer, scanner and other general-cord-ugliness underneath the desk, so I found this vintage bed sheet on Etsy and made it into a curtain (I attached a tension rod underneath). It was super easy and I didn't even have to break out my sewing machine. Since the top of a bed sheet already has that "pocket" of sorts at the top, but it's sewn on the edges... I just took out those edge seems and had an immediate pocket (hopefully that made sense). I cut off the bottom fabric of the sheet and folded over an edge a couple times and used fabric glue to finish off the edge. There's still some cords we need to somehow hide, but it looks much better.
The basket on the wall is a vintage bicycle basket (for cute!) that I found when I thought I was going to be getting a bike. Since we've put that off for a bit, I thought it was too cute not to hang up somewhere. Throw some yarn in it and it makes for a cute little decoration. (I love the plastic flowers on it)
This girl is a new doll that I got from my parents for my birthday... she is quite the beauty and quickly becoming my favorite! (Simply Vanilla Blythe) I got the cute outfit from my sister-in-law (thanks Heather!)
This is another new girl that I got for my birthday (on the left), my first Licca Doll! She's so pretty and I love having such a Japanese looking doll.
The little Pandas are part of the Calico Critters collection that I stumbled onto in a toy store over the holidays. Ethan remembered that I commented on them and got me some for my birthday. ; ) I wasn't so fond of their clothes, so they're naked for now.
I call the room on the right the "Misfit Room" because it's filled with quite the motley crew. The Pet Shop Blythe was bought for me by Ethan as well. Wasn't looking to get one, but she's quite cute. The other mini-pose dolls are from a collection I found on ebay. I figured that I'll never be lucky to score too many of the original mod style cloth pose dolls that go fast on Japan Auctions, etc... so I can settle for the mini-plastic ones. ; )
I like that they are small enough to be dolls for my dolls. (heehee) They are called the "Cutie Doll Collection by Ayumi Uyama" if you're intersted in searching for the set. The large cloth pose doll I found at an antique mall but she was one of the frou-frou looking ones with huge frilly dress, etc. So I re-outfitted her in some Blythe stock clothes I had. She looks much better.
I still need to shop for some rement miniatures/decorative pieces as the rooms are a bit empty, but I'm so happy with how it turned out. Dollhouses are fun!
