1.) Buy a dollhouse kit and proceed with the long, albeit rewarding, process of gluing together pre cut wooden components into your finished house, then starting the interior design process.
2.) Start from scratch and cut, saw, hammer, and glue a variety of woods to create a custom house of your dreams.
3.) Go bargain hunting somewhere and find a fantastic fixer upper that inspires your inner mini.
For the haunted house you are about to see built, it was a combination of all three... but mostly three. :)
A haunted dollhouse was always an appealing idea to me. It held a lot of promise to show off and hone some skills. The idea popped up while visiting my favorite L.A. shop, Necromance, talking to one of my favorite sales girls, Key. She was discussing her latest venture in trying to taxidermy mice. She said whenever she couldn't get them skinned just right she would dry the little pelts into tiny mouse-skin rugs just for the heck of it. "They'd be great for a creepy dollhouse or something" she laughed.
BAM... inspired.
While walking with two good friends in Silverlake trying to get cash to pay for our parking spot, we stumbled into an old gypsy woman with a beautiful victorian dollhouse dangeling from her horse-drawn wagon...
Kidding...it was a dusty consignment store and a smokey sales guy in his mid 50s. Anyway... in the window was a beautifully simple, 4 story dollhouse. 1:12 scale, hinged in the middle to open like a book. If that weren't awesome enough, it was still filled with tiny trinkets from the former owner.
I knew this was the dollhouse. Fellow artists can back me up on this one, when you find what you've been looking for, you have to have it. Unfortunately, the owner was asking $125.00 for the house. As amazing as it was, I couldn't swing that (and to be honest it wasn't worth that). I decided to try and barter. It wasn't working. According to him it had just come in, was in great shape, and was a steal with all the tiny furniture in it. He wanted to hang on to it to make sure he got the best price. Sigh. Defeated, I left the shop and returned home.
Later that evening on my way to work I swung by the shop. To my astonishment the entire shop had disappeared... like it had never existed in the first place. In it's place was a dusty dirt lot in the middle of which was a sun-beached piece of paper that said...
Kidding... the shop was still there and lucky for me it was a different guy behind the counter! I asked him if he would take $25 for the house and I would lug it away ASAP.
SOLD!!!!
Apparently the dollhouse had been there for months and they were getting ready to toss it. Go figure. Long story short, the house was MINE!
This house has something creepy about it already. For starters it couldn't have been from a kit, it was too simple. It had to have been made by a parent for their kid by hand. The roof's shingles, stone facade and chimney bricks were all hand painting in a chunky, creepily cute way. It was chipped and dinged and in need of a Lysol bath. The moldy, fabric on the walls and fake wood contact paper on the floors suggested it was at least 40 years old, if not more.
A great way to tell the age of something is to look at the color of the wood. As it sits exposed it darkens and looses moisture, creating a more brittle material. This house's wood was dark orange... perfect for tiny ghosts!
Another way to tell it's age was the glue remnants from past fireplaces, picutre frames, and bookshelves. The glue on my house was so aged I could snap every shelf off the walls with ease... and did! It was time for a de- renovation! A make-under! Some curb-a-squeeeeal. I got it home, gutted it out, and decided to start with something small. The fireplace...
Things to Remember:
1.) Find a peice that spe
2.) Bargain hunt and barter. A lot of time and cash go into miniatures. Some 1:12 scale pieces of furniture retail for more than life-size ones. Make sure you love it AND the price before you commit to a house or kit.
3.) Beware magical, old, gypsies in Silverlake.
