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Upholstered rocking chair bashed from a Cassidy Creations kit

August 8, 2025 / / 0 Comments

When I posted about the Mansard Victorian’s nursery, I left off wondering if the William Clinger rocking chair was a good fit for this room.

I’ve had my eye on this comfy-looking JBM rocking chair, but it’s expensive. It seemed like it would go well with the nursery furniture, but I didn’t want to buy it and then find the colors weren’t a good match. (Photo is from Miniature Designs.)

Since I’m on a quest to furnish this house with Bauder-Pine and Cassidy Creations furniture, I decided to try bashing a Cassidy Creations Sheraton wing chair into a rocking chair.

For the bottom, I’m using the bottom of a Shenandoah rocking chair. I have a few of these lying around so I didn’t mind destroying one of them.

It was pretty easy to wiggle out the leg pieces. Some of the pieces came unattached in the process but they all stick into little holes, so gluing them back together was also easy. And the top of the chair won’t go to waste — I can add different legs to make it a regular chair.

The Sheraton chair’s back legs are part of the side pieces, so I had to cut these off. I saved the pieces since I might be able to use them on another chair someday.

To mark where the legs go, I drew on the tips with Sharpie and then pressed the legs into the seat.

Then I drilled holes with the micro drill. (Sorry for the fuzzy picture.)

The two holes at the back are at a 45-degree(ish) angle since the back legs are slanted.

I painted the bottom with the same off-white paint and tan wash I used on the crib slats. Here it is next to the sample piece I made when I was working on the crib.

After I redid the nursery fabric a couple weeks ago, I placed a new order for Restoration Hardware swatches. The Ultra-Fine Organic Cotton swatch is the same fabric I used on the crib and changing table. For some reason the website would only let me put one of these in my cart, but I was able to order multiples of the same color in Washed Linen-Cotton.

I decided to use the Washed Linen-Cotton this time since 1) it’s thicker and would (theoretically) be easier to work with, and 2) I had two of them, so I wouldn’t risk running out.

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Cassidy Creations nursery musings

July 23, 2025 / / 7 Comments

With the Mansard Victorian’s bathroom finally finished, I can now move on to the rooms on either side of it: a bedroom on the left and a nursery on the right. I started with the nursery because the electrical will be a little less complicated. (But only a little.)

I originally bought an assembled Cassidy Creations nursery to use in this room. This set was finished by Cass Harkins, who used to cut the Cassidy Creations kits for Bauder-Pine. (No relation to the “Cassidy” of Cassidy Creations — that was Bob Cassidy, Pat Bauder’s uncle.)


This post has more info about the nursery I bought, as well as photos of other pink sets made by Cass.

More recently, I’ve come across photos of two sets in other colors. This one is from Worthpoint.

And this one was posted by Lisa M. Mtz Heitman, owner of the ISO, For Sale & Chit Chat Dollhouse Group on Facebook.

According to Cathy Miller-Vaughan, the current owner of Bauder-Pine, the little animals on these pieces are cut from wrapping paper.

The February 1984 issue of Nutshell News has an article about a 1:12 scale version of the Cassidy Creations nursery. I knew Cassidy Creations sold a firescreen kit in 1:12, but I’d never seen anything else in that scale.

Here’s what Cathy had to say about it:

The one inch scale nursery set was one of a few pieces that were offered way back in the 80’s, I think. Pat and Mary [Pat Bauder’s original business partner, before she teamed up with Frank Moroz] started in one inch scale in the late 70’s, early 80’s. I’m not sure why Pat eventually moved down to half inch.

Here are a few pics Cathy sent me of the 1:12 nursery. These were also assembled by Cass Harkins, but signed with just her initials. Even without a scale reference, you can tell these are beefier than the half scale versions.



A picture in the Nutshell News article shows an elephant rather than a duck. Also, the article mentions that the front of the crib slides down in the 1:12 version. (It doesn’t in the half scale version.)

I have an eBay search set up for “Cassidy Creations,” and I had received several notifications about nursery pieces that I ignored because I didn’t need more nursery kits. One day I looked closer and realized they were the 1:12 version! (Yes, I bought them. I have a problem.)

Okay, back to the Mansard Victorian. I do love the pink nursery set, but I had two little complaints: it didn’t come with the swan, and the colors feel too bright compared to the other colors I’m using in this house.

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Mansard Victorian bathroom finished, plus a wallpaper fix

June 29, 2025 / / 9 Comments

Immediately after I posted my last entry, I decided I couldn’t live with this awful corner after all and I started thinking about how I could fix it.

Turns out it wasn’t that hard. I started by laying the wallpaper/wainscot piece for the right wall (which wasn’t glued in yet) on top of a new piece of wallpaper, so the pattern lined up.

I laid a ruler against the top of the wainscot to mark the bottom of the wallpaper piece, and used my paper cutter to cut it.

Next I took a smaller scrap and held it up in the corner, cutting little strips off the side until the pattern lined up.

I laid the scrap on top of the piece I’d cut to the correct height, and used this to figure out where the edge of my new piece needed to be.

That’s going to look much better!

I then cut the notch at the front… and what do you know, I messed it up. Luckily I had a couple more sheets of this paper, so I was able to prepare another new piece.

A few days earlier I’d picked up a new can of UV spray from Michaels. Since I couldn’t remember if I’d already sprayed the paper for the right wall, I sprayed it too.

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