Goldilocks Returns: Welcome to the Dollhouse

So there it was, eight months later, (at Brimfield),

 sitting in almost the exact same spot it was sitting in when I blogged about it the first time in September 2012. "How much is it this year?"  I asked the seller.

"$250."  (Down from $500..which was down from $900).

 Then he pointed me to a box laying on the ground several yards away that had a whole bunch of spare trim parts and wallpapers and furnishings that all went with the house.  He accepted my $200 offer and I carted it all off to my car.

When I got home, I set up the house in my studio to assess all the work ahead and identify its maker.   One great thing about this house is the convenience of the three separate stacking sections, which make it easy to move and convenient to work on.

I pulled out my collection of dollhouse books and my googling machine, and quickly determined that this was a Christian Hacker dollhouse made sometime in the 19th Century.  Rough as it was, it still had plenty of signature details, the most obvious to me being the painted outline details and the kitchen cupboards.   

(The cupboard was completely disassembled in eleven pieces but I have put it back together since taking this photo. The metal wash stand was something I had in my collection already but wanted to see "in action".) 

The box of spare parts was loaded with stuff. I spread it all out on the floor to inventory.

 At the bottom of this picture you can see where somebody had salvaged old layers of wallpaper scraps from the house and labelled which room they came from.

 They had also saved the glass windows and what appear to be the original lace curtains.

To top it all off  there was a nice, random assortment of old furnishings in different scales from different eras.

The metal pendulum clock was in one of my books and described as German, 19th century.  (It has a winding mechanism but I can't get it to work yet!)

Photographs of the house taken in 1989 were amongst a small amount of paperwork, which included a couple of dollhous-y newspaper articles and a handwritten note calling the house a "Captain's House with a widow's walk."

  It was already in poor condition in 1989, with many crude repairs, but someone had plans to restore it further.    Loose wooden replacement trim parts had been hand made by a woodworker,  and a stack of bad 1970s wallpaper was waiting to get installed (Yikes, Noooo!).

(2nd floor facade with smashed doorway, staircase pieces, random trim, balustrade/widow's walk)

I've had the house for one week now, and spent several hours painstakingly removing the top layers of non-original wallpapers (some walls had 4 layers)

and glueing the entire house back together.

It's been like a putting a jigsaw puzzle together, and there are still some stray parts and unsolved mysteries.   Lucky for me I live with an expert antique restorer, who will help me fix the hinges of the facades, broken staircase and balustrade.

What I've come to decide after a week with this house is that it does not want to be restored, it just wants to be put back together and loved as-is, with all its rough- and-tumble charm.  I feel like I rescued it from what could have been horrible further abuse, and for now, anyway, I want to keep it in "original" as-found condition as possible, without polish and inappropriate updates.  My one temptation would be to add some antique marbled papers to the walls that are in the worse condition, but we'll see.

 Here's what I read in one of my dollhouse books,  Dolls' Houses   ©1997 by Olivia Bristol and Leslie Geddes-Brown:

"When it comes to restoration the rule is Don't. The value of antique dolls' houses and their furniture lies in the originality of the condition, however distressed. Nearly all serious damage in old houses is caused by enthusiastic overpainting or tinkering...."

So there you have it.

Last Tuesday:

This Tuesday:

I will be posting more pictures in June, as things progress, when we do 30 Dresses again.  (What's "30 Dresses"?  Click Here. If you're not on facebook,  just join already.)

It will give me an opportunity to decorate, show interior pictures of the house,  and brush up on my photoshop skills (yes, I'm going to be shrinking down and

moving into the house).  Maybe I'll even talk about vintage clothing again...

A Year of Windows

                                                        xmas 2011

VDay

Hangin' Hosiery

Mad Men Mania returns

Cinco de Mayo

May...

Pride

Mid-Century Modern...

Save the Furgary...

Day at the Beach...

Beach Wear

Paul Anka

(this dress is still for sale!?)

Artswalk featuring Earls

Autumn Plaids

Halloween featuring Earls and Earl Costume

(Wool cape is still for sale!?)

Golden Xmas Lady

Warm Woolen Mittens, Blue Satin Sashes, Brown Paper Packages Tied up with String.....

Probably missed a few but that's the gist of it for this year.  I'll post some customer shots in the next few weeks.  Meanwhile, Thanks to all the loyal Five and Diamond shoppers for my best year yet.  Have a safe and Happy New Year!

Goldilocks and the three Dollhouses

I have been on the hunt for an antique dollhouse for quite some time now.

A cupboard style house; taller than it is wide, and with a flat or mansard roof.   Widow's walk and original wallpapers would be a huge plus.   They are harder to find than regular farmhouse or  Victorian style dollhouses, and usually very expensive.

This week at Brimfield, however, (loaded with cash from the Labor Day weekend thankyouverymuch), I was amazed to find three houses that I maybe coulda shoulda woulda bought.

I'll start with the one that got away.   Home made cream Italianate. 

I loved the details like the tower, trim,  and the elevating base with steps, like you see in old English dollhouses.  Also, the panel doors had old brass locks (children are not allowed to play with my miniatures!), and, the seller had already crafted replacement parts for the missing trim. Much bigger than it looks in the picture, the size of this house was out-of-scale for my collection of antique miniatures (1:12 scale), but I perhaps would have let that detail slide. Unfortunatly the house was sold before I got to ask the price. 

This next one was old and sweetly tattered, small enough for a table top, and in very poor condition. $500.  

Probably commercially made, maybe by Gottschalk or Bliss.  I've bought and sold a few dollhouses like this, but none was "just right" for my needs).... 

This one was restorable but didn't have enough going for it.  Had all the wallpapers not been violently scratched and scraped off every surface, I might have sprung for it.  That was the deal breaker.

Lastly, the one I loved the very most.     If I were to build one from scratch it would look a lot like this.  

Looked like an old FAO Schwartz store display or something.  Wouldn't it look amazing in my shop window at Christmastime?   Over 5 feet high, with balconys and side windows letting in lots of light. No doors to open; just reach right in. Electrified but (again) in need of much restoration.   At $1800,  it was way out of my league.  Even at 7 am, the seller insisted I make any old crazy offer.  I did, he declined, and when I went back two hours later to take a better picture --and maybe make a better offer? --- it was gone.

Boomerangs

This dress called out to me from across the room at the Salvation Army this morning.

It was bright, fun, very Phyllis Diller, and very familiar. I walked over to it and realized why.   It had cycled through my shop already. It had a Salvation Army price tag stapled to it, AND, it had one of my five&diamond price tags attached under the arm with a ribbon and safety pin.  From April 2011, $65.
 I've been scratching my head all day trying to figure out whether the dress could have been stolen (I almost always remove my tags when selling an item) and then discarded --- or --- was it purchased, never worn, and then discarded?   I'll probably never know, but yeah, I purchased it again, and it will be out on the racks this week with a much more reasonable price of $35.

Boomerang #2 is this very "Goodfellas" knit shirt-jac.  My friend Michael brought it in a couple weeks ago,  claiming he purchased from me in 1996, when he and I had shops across the street from each other in Tivoli.  (Can't say I remember a shirt I sold 16 years ago, but I took his word for it.) It is still vintage and still  fab, here in the 21st century.

My favorite boomerang of late is this slinky rayon late-30s dress, which is, in fact, now, a double-boomerang.  I sold it to Holly a couple of years ago, who needed a dress for a wedding.  I told Holly she could always sell it back to me if she wanted to, that's how much I love this dress.   

 She took me up on the offer, and returned it a couple of months later, trading it in for more Holly-appropriate garb.  The dress sold quickly again,  to Patty, and I offered Patty the same return-for credit deal.  Patty owned the dress for about a year. She wore it once, and just recently brought it back to me and traded it for a jacket she will get much more wear out of.   I'm more than happy to have the dress back in the shop for what is now the third time, but come September will probably put it away for next spring.

Hudson PRIDE: A long way, baby

2010

2011

2012

Some April Arrivals and Departures