Lines Dollshouse DH3 another doer upper

 

DH/3, 1924-1933. Dimensions: 31.25 inches [79.5 cm] wide, 18 inches [46 cm] deep and 32.5 inches [83 cm] high.

This is another house I had from Kevin Taylor, and I hope it isn't the last. I loved it straight away, instantly seeing its potential. It had no back and the rear part of the roof was missing. Again it had been painted horribly and the roof was papered with horrible stuff from the 1970s.


I soon stripped that off and ordered some replica papers from The Dolls House Man on Ebay. Then I painted the ceilings, eaves and interior wood with a antique white paint,


The new roof paper looked a bit bright so I darkened it down with black wax - you can see the bit i have treated beside the untreated part in the photo below.


Then the fiddly bit with the windows and balustrade which took several weeks with both of us working on it. The railing was daubed with thick paint, it was quite easy to scrape off and then when he repainted it John put them on the end of his drill, slowly turning it against the loaded brush to get a smooth thin coat. They look lovely now. The windows also look better now we've tightened and repainted them and added some glass.



I have always found the porch troublesome on these houses. Left painted white they don't look anything like a real porch so I took liberties and added some depth and colour. I used Triang brick paper around the door (easily removable if some future purist doesn't like it) and I added paving to the floor. I was a bit dismayed the door knocker was missing so until I find a replacement I used a miniature spoon. I have actually come to rather like it, it's like one of those novelty knockers you see on people's homes.



and then I made a range for the kitchen. These are always missing from the houses I get, as are the dressers but I have learned to make them and this one, fashioned from thick card sits perfectly on the back wall of the kitchen.









I think this is one of my favourite restorations so far. It all went well, no real headaches and the final result was very satisfactory. Next on the kitchen island is a DH11 which is in an awful sorry state. But not for long!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hobbies 237 special - tudor style dollshouse

Image
  This one was in a sorry old state when we got it. The lady who sold it was reluctant to let it go as it had been her mother's but she knew she would never find the time to restore it. Hobbies houses were sold in kit form - a bit of research and I found the image below. Inside wasn't pretty but miraculously we found all the missing windows stored in the vintage 1980s tin. The previous owners had stipped most of the paper, presumably with a chisel for the walls were gouged in places. The stairs were missing. The hallway of these houses is very narrow, so narrow I couldn't get my hand in and make a fist, so the only way we could work in the two left hand rooms was to remove the walls. Not so difficult with a small hammer. It took ages and a  great deal of wetting and scraping and weeping to get all the paper off. The house seems to have been made from a packing crate, the big black letters visible once the paper was removed. Since it had so few original features left, I had ...
Read more

Triang number 63 - Chippenham House

Image
                                                                            Before I've called this one Chippenham House because we bought it from a lovely lady in Chippenham. I have only seen two of these come up for sale in recent years and my sister bought the other one! It had been in the lady's family for several generations and been through many different stages of decoration. Originally the roof would have been brown, the thatched effect dating it to between 1930-32. The windows were always black with lace curtains. As always I wanted to restore it to as near the original as possible, not a simple task due to the layers of gloss paint. It is a pretty house, 16th scale (I think) so smaller than the Stockbroker range and luckily I had a stash of such furniture, plus I might have done a bit of sh...
Read more

Triang Number 76 - our first restoration

Image
 Sometimes I get fed up with routine. I write historical fiction and need a release from that and have various hobbies which include sewing historical clothing, crochet, gardening. I never seem to have enough time for them and you’d probably be right in thinking the last thing I needed was another one. However, I recently spotted an almost antique Triang dolls house and it triggered something dormant in my mind.  My dad made me a lovely modern 1960s style bungalow when I was little, which was probably just as splendid a pad as a little girl really needs but I’d always cast slightly envious looks at the houses my friends owned. One of my friends had one with electric lighting and a radio that worked. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I mentioned said longing to my old fella and he said, ‘Why don’t you buy one then?’ So I bought nine ... so far. Number 76 cost the princely sum of £65 and is in ‘original’ condition. We intend to  keep all the houses as close to authentic as...
Read more