Rich Toys Vintage Dollhouse Tour: 7. Boy's Room

Until now, all the rooms we have toured contain furniture dating back to the 1950's: the dining room, kitchen, living room, and master bedroom. However, this next room (the boy's room) has newer furniture. Why? Here's the story... 

I would like to give myself credit for safeguarding this dollhouse for over 60 years, but that would not be quite accurate. Mother, many years ago when I was a teenager, had an opportunity to sell the dollhouse and its contents to a good friend with a young daughter. I told her to go ahead and sell, I wasn't interested anymore. Unbeknownst to me at the time, she tucked the dollhouse away for safekeeping until I was married with two children of my own. She then told me she still had the dollhouse and did I want it now? Yes! Oh my, yes! I couldn't believe it!

That's when the renovation of the dollhouse began: painting, wallpapering, and carpeting. Also, we needed a boy's room in the dollhouse (we had a son) and a third floor addition (to move the girl's room upstairs where the old original pieces would fit easily). So, for the boy's room, since there was no "hand me down furniture dating from the 1950's," I went shopping. The selections were all craft store/hobby store miniatures readily available where we lived at the time. These "new" pieces were fun to collect. In fact, I've seen similar pieces on Pinterest that have been painted with chalk paint and used for a "shabby-chic" look in more current, trendy dollhouses.

Have a look around... the boy's room reflects some of my son's interests and activities growing up. He loved little cars and actually had a large Micky Mouse on his bedroom wall. No, he didn't have that much furniture in his room or a rolltop desk, but this is a dollhouse, right?

Remember the grooves in the ceiling when we were viewing the master bedroom? Back in the 1970's after mother returned the dollhouse to me, I asked my husband to cut a small piece of spare paneling to put a third floor in my dollhouse. He cut a piece and fit it with the flat side up and the grooved side down which became the ceiling of the floor below. Then he carefully cut the roof (gasp!) to accommodate the furniture that would be in two more rooms upstairs. During this renovation, the dollhouse went from being my mother's and grandmother's house into being all mine -- and probably ruined her "collectible" status forever!

Did you notice the little train under the Christmas Tree and the one in the boy's room? When the children were small, my husband made an HO scale model train layout on a 4' x 8' table which he later sold to a friend before one of our moves. The cute little trains remind me of fun times playing with the small HO trains when the children were little.

Before we leave the boy's room and head to the nursery, look at the small cross-stitch rug I made (since I couldn't crochet). I made it to go in the original nursery, but after the renovation when the rooms were shuffled around, it didn't fit in the tiny nursery and ended up as part of the boy's room along with the shoofly.

The tiny nursery is next...