Building from scratch...or a kit.

My idea was to build a Queen Anne style dollhouse from scratch, but being that I don't know much about dollhouses, I didn't really know where to start on this.  I drew up some plans and considered material choices, wall thickness, ceiling height etc, but I kept losing focus.  Dang, this dollhouse scratch-building stuff is a lot of work!

I began to oggle the kits that were on the market.  How much easier would it be, I thought, if I just bought a kit and knocked out wall here, or put a dormer in there?  Far easier, I imagined.  In fact, there was even a Queen Anne kit, made by Real Good Toys, that would almost entirely fit the bill of what I wanted in a house - and it was giant!  With, unfortunately, a giant price tag.

Then, for my birthday, my husband suggested I go buy a kit that I wanted.  We both agreed the RGT Queen Anne was too expensive, and in reality, the QA was a little too big and just didn't "speak" to me in the way I wanted.  Instead, I kept coming back to an old Duracraft San Franciscan and falling in love with it's two front towers.  The only problem was, the SF was too small for what I wanted!  Do I sound like Goldilocks yet?



This, of course, was not a problem for the house, because it picked me.  I've heard a lot of Dollhouse hobbyists suggest "listening" to what the house wants, as if the house was sentient and capable of speaking.  That's a good explanation, but on a practical level, what they're talking about is an artist's intuition, and what that means is that sometimes as an artist, you absolutely know when you have a scene to work with and you just know you have to do it.  You're inspired by your material, and inspired by what you know you can turn that material into. Shakespeare called it his "muse"; in miniland, we say the house is speaking to you.  And that's what the SF said to me.  I had to do this house.  Somehow, I knew, I would make it the house I wanted it to be.

Luckily, about the same day I decided I wanted the San Franciscan, someone posted up a new-in-box kit on craigslist for $40, and I jumped on it!  Not only had I saved a ton of money, but I'd gotten a complete kit with instructions that would help me figure out how to solidify my designs.  It was off to my sketchbook and the internet to come up with a design.

It's taken me a few weeks and a lot of research to settle on an idea, but I'm pretty happy with the direction I'm going in.  I'll be keeping the original facade of the Duracraft SF (but adding a lot of extra trimwork), and expanding it on both sides to give it the space I need for the rooms I've got in mind, which I'll list here:

Front Entry hall w/stairs
Formal Dining
Parlor w/elevator
Kitchen w/glassed-in Butler's Pantry
Common Library
Captain's Gallery (a private study inside the library, housing the rare books and serving as a formal meeting chamber)
Laboratory
Master Bedroom
Boudoir
Master bath

Of course, I've got lots of goodies planned for these rooms, and I'm planning to set them up in an unconventional style - instead of lined up side by side like you'd see in most dollhouses, many of these rooms will be connected by halls and door ways.  I intend to fully enclose the back, with the idea being that you must get up close and peek through the windows to see the goings on inside.  I'm still working with the design of the house openings, but for now at least I've got a basic layout ready...now time to do some measuring and cutting!