The Visalian, upon which my 1:24 scale Seaside Villa is based, was modeled after a real house in Visalia, California, that burned down in the early 1980s. After my first post about the dollhouse, I was contacted by Judy Lewin, the owner of Mill Creek Miniatures and a former Visalia resident who researched the house […]
Category: Dollhouses (Page 7 of 27)
The other day I used the word “bashed” in conversation and the person I was talking to didn’t know what I meant. In case you’re not familiar, “bash” is short for “kitbash,” which is a phrase I first read in Nutshell News back in the nineties, and I’m sure it was around before then. It […]
I’ve never attempted to use clapboard on the octagonal portions of my houses — too many small pieces to cut and corners to make neat. On the Queen Anne Rowhouse, I just painted the wood. I would have done the same with the Seaside Villa, except I needed to fill in a portion of the […]
This year the Half Scale Miniatures Group‘s annual swap had two themes — Toys and Plants. I was especially excited about the toys because I have three kids’ rooms to fill up in the Victorianna. My contribution was a stacking ring toy. I got the idea for this after stumbling across rubber jump rings on […]
In December I got an email from a woman named Sue who reads my blog. She was downsizing her mini collection and offered to sell me a half scale Seaside Villa dollhouse shell. This house used to be available from Rocky Mountain Woodcrafts, a line owned by Norm’s Dollhouse in Colorado, which shut down in […]
Once upon a time the Victorianna had a pretty peach bathroom. This was the first room I finished (four years ago!) and I was really happy with it. The tiles were from Elf Miniatures and I loved the color. Fast forward a year. About six months after moving into our new house in San Francisco, […]
I’ve received a lot of comments from readers of my blog thanking me for documenting my mistakes. I never really set out to do that — I guess I just make a lot of mistakes! This is going to be one of those posts. As of my last post, the Victorianna’s scratch-built kitchen was almost […]
So I said in my last post that this would be the grande finale for the Victorianna’s kitchen. It’s not — I still have to finish the stove, and I might have torn up the hardwood floor for no good reason. (Oops.) I’ll leave you in suspense about that until it’s fixed, but for now, […]
When I first started working on the Victorianna — four years ago! — I bought a pack of Grandt Line windows planning to use one in the kitchen. It wasn’t as deep as the plywood wall + siding. I always figured I could do something with strip wood to make up the extra space. Well, […]
In my real life kitchen, I picked out the countertop first and then spent a crazy amount of time finding backsplash tiles that would go well with it. I ended up with tiles in the same color family as the countertop, but a few shades lighter. I wanted to do something similar in the Victorianna […]
After completing the kitchen cabinets, I turned my attention to the backsplash. It’s not easy to find realistic tile to scale in 1:24. I was really tempted to print something out, but after the problems I’ve had with printies fading, I didn’t want to tempt fate. So I started thinking about how I could use […]
Tragedy struck my $1 Horace Jones sink. I’d left it in the countertop (not glued in) and I picked up the cabinet and tipped it slightly to look at something and the sink fell out and hit the floor. Before this happened, I’d actually thought to myself that I shouldn’t leave the sink in the […]
Continuing with the Victorianna’s kitchen cabinets: I wanted the upper cabinet on the right of the fridge to include a shelf for the microwave. This required buying or making a microwave before I could make the cabinets on that side, so I’d know how wide that cabinet needed to be. Mini Etchers makes a microwave […]
This isn’t a new purchase, but I didn’t post about it at the time. Back in September I went to a miniature flea market in Benicia, CA where I bought this half scale shell for $30. The front of the house is stamped F1. The tower section on the front is removable, and there’s a […]
The Victorianna’s kitchen sink will be centered under the window. After building the cabinet, I next needed to figure out how the window lined up with it. The window isn’t glued in yet. I held the cabinet up to the window hole and marked the edges of the window on the back side. Then I […]
When I first started working on the Victorianna, I bought a set of kitchen cabinets from Bruce Dawson, who sold under the name bedMiniatures (he’s since retired). I planned out a U-shaped layout. Since then, I redid the kitchen in my real house, and learned a lot about kitchens that I never knew before. For […]
You’d think that having just finished the Rowhouse shingles I wouldn’t be itching to shingle another dollhouse — and you’d be right! — but the roof is one of the last remaining tasks on the Victorianna, and I want to get this house finished. To refresh your memory, here’s the outside of the house: The […]
Not to be confused with the Rowhouse’s other bed with a cross-stitched cover, I just finished up a bed for the attic bedroom. There’s a long story behind this, so sit tight. (Or scroll to the bottom if you just want to see the end result!) When I was working on the Rowhouse’s stair rooms, […]
I had hoped to be farther along with the Victorianna’s kitchen by now, but c’est la vie. I’m waiting for a Shapeways stove to come in the mail and thinking through some ideas for scratch built cabinets. In the meantime, I’ve finished the window seat that I started in September. I bought a Lee’s Line […]
I’m at the point where I could attach the Victorianna’s roof, but after spending so much time shingling the Rowhouse I just don’t have it in me to do another roof right now. So I moved on to the last room in the house: the kitchen. I wanted to use the same tan wallpaper I […]
Emily is a freelance writer, miniaturist, and adventure game enthusiast.
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