Big Things Come In Little Houses

My Mom is a very talented lady. She sews, she quilts and she builds dollhouses. I am so proud to share her lovely little houses with you! My mother's thoughts on dollhouses and why she builds then:

"In both dollshouses I started with a philosophical premise - livable, traditional to its roots. I think I told you the living room wallpaper in the farmhouse is not to my liking, but I decided the people who live there lack taste."

"A dollhouse takes time, it is relaxing, pokey, deliberate and a dollhouse store is inspiring - a trap, actually. What will I do with miniature bricks? I need a farm light over the back porch. That diamond pattern in the farmhouse shake roof: I saw that being constructed by the roofers on a "This Old House" site on Nantucket; saw a rerun one day and quickly sketched their pattern as it was discussed. I have two of the diamonds in my shake roof. The bricks? They are built into two fireplaces in the English cottage; the Farm light is above the back porch of the farmhouse. Oh, the bricks also surround the farmhouse chimney."

The quotes that show up below some of the pictures are her comments. Enjoy!

We were not invited into the first house as the family was on holiday some place wonderful but we were allowed to wander around outside.

This little beauty's address is Burlington Gardens, England.

Even from afar it looks cozy!

At the next house we came to on our tour, the family was home

and delighted in our request to come in and poke around a bit.
Shall we go in?

Trailing Yew is the name of the Monhegan Island ( Maine)

hostel my mother and father have stayed at.

Adirondack chairs and a Purple Martin house...fabulous!

Be careful to step over the late and great "Patient Watson".

The living room looks like the perfect place to curl up with a cuppa.

The grand piano and bench are from the dollhouse
my mother got for Christmas in 1935.

What a great kitchen, all the details are perfect.

"The stove is the kind I grew up with; one Sunday during the dinner preparations, the oven door fell off at the hinge; Mother and I and the door drove several miles to the local blacksmith (this was not an easy undertaking as Mother disliked driving and every shifting of gears shook the whole town),. I think the blacksmith knew the door from a previous calamity, welded together the broken pieces, we drove home, placed it back on the stove and dinner roasting continued."

On the dresser is a tiny crocheted doily made by my Dad's Aunt Jenny.

I love the bathroom the best!


"The sewing machine is in memory of my father who designed small electric motors for Singer sewing machine and electric fans."

When we were little kids and then on Christmas when we were big kids, my mother used to create treasure hunts for us. She is an amazing doodler and her clues were always so fun! If you look at the lower right had corner of the attic, you will see one of her clues from a Christmas morning treasure hunt that led one of the lucky kids right to this little house! I love that detail.

"Attic: Papered with miniature reprints of 1930-50s newspapers, primarily New York City. Especially meaningful to me is the sports headline of Bobby Thomson's playoff home run that ruined the Brooklyn Dodgers' chance to play in the World Series. I was in the newsroom at the daily paper where I was a reporter and suffered silently the heart breaker while surrounded by cheering sports writers. This disastrous occasion of course was via radio."

My father has always had a train table in the cellar. This miniature train set honors him and his talent for creating his own kind of lovely little places, although the trains may be small, his train tables are not! Hmmm...I will have to blog about that.

I love back porches and rockers. What could be better?

Maybe a home made pie on the wondow sill?

Looks like late and great"Pushy Dodger"
wants to get inside for some some turkey!

And of course at every house, there must be a garden!



It has also been a lot of fun for me to pour over all these pictures and see so many of the dollhouse pieces my sister and I grew up playing with in my Mom's dollhouse which I think we (or was it just me?) ruined or at the very least, seriously altered when we thought it needed to be redecorated!




Thank you, Mama,
for allowing me to share your dollhouses
with the rest of the world!



A very special thank you to my brother Jim who did what he does best when he looks through the lense of his fancy camera and makes magic happen with the click of a button.