The Dolls House Project...

I decided, in my infinite wisdom, that it would be a really nice idea to get a Dolls House for Chrissy. She's over the age of two now, and is rapidly growing out of toys that she loved five minutes ago (although luckily, that's just as Littlest Edward is starting to love them instead). She loves dressing up in my (or her Dads weirdly enough) shoes, and constantly nicks my handbags, so much so that I've had to remove all the straps to avoid accidents.


I looked them up on EBay, but was frankly shocked how much they cost. Even chipboard ones like my old one are upwards of a hundred pounds. And I'm not being cheap, but Chrissy is to a dolls house what a tornado is to a real house. I estimate that within five minutes something will have made her frustrated and she'll break it in anger, hey thats two year olds for you.


So you can just imagine my happiness when I spotted one offered on my local Freecycle.


It said that it needed a bit of a paint inside, but was two storeys and wooden. Yay!



So off I went in a taxi (as we still have no car) to get this masterpiece (I imagined it would look something like this)


I was soon to find that maybe masterpiece was a bit kind......


When I got it back, Mr D took one sceptical look and with a "hmm"suggested we throw it in the bin.


Indeed it was two storeys, wooden and requiring a paint. However she did not mention that it was falling to bits (in fact it looked quite like my daughter had got hold of it already).

Me being sentimental, as it looked near on exactly the same as my old beloved dolls house, and as I didn't want to throw the poor thing away, I spent a large proportion of yesterday salvaging bits of the thing.


Firstly, there is two different types of brick paper on it. But no problems, I will strip it off, and paint it white.

"Hmmm" said Mr D again, at the site of me with a hammer and screwdriver, in an even more sceptical manner. "Make me a cup of tea and I'll help".

So I did, and even got him some Jaffa Cakes. Then he sodded off.


I decided it was a better idea to take it apart and start from scratch. I didn't realise one dolls house could contain so many screws, nails and so much glue, which I now have to sand before I can place new wallpaper on it. (perfectionist? Moi?)


I have now decided (after 3 hours of hard graft) that instead of painting it white outside, I'm going to use good old Google images, search for brick walls and hey presto, printer at the ready, stick some new brickwork on, for free.
Also that way I can cheat and not have to fill all the millions of holes left after I removed the aforementioned screws and nails. (See I told you I wasn't a perfectionist).

Leaving me more cash to spend on furniture. Hoorray! Any excuse for vast quantities of EBay related perusal once the kids are in bed.

Wish me luck!