Petronella Oortman’s cabinet dollhouse on display at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Cabinet Dollhouses

A Cabinet Of Curiosities

The term cabinet was originally used to describe a room, rather than a piece of furniture. A “Cabinet of Curiosity” could contain collections of unusual items: fossils, scientific studies, oddities gathered from newly discovered lands. These rooms were often lavishly decorated, the treasures displayed in a setting designed for their maximum effect.

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Brooke Tucker Window Treatment

As an interior designer, I constantly manipulate objects to deceive the eye and give the impression that a room is larger than a tape measure indicates. Curtains offer great opportunities to do this. In dollhouses too.

There is no law saying you have to keep curtains adjacent to the window, as Brooke Tucker did in the Sitting Room miniature box below. It is simply a custom. Extending the fabric vertically and horizontally is fine. Just make sure the proportions of fabric within the “frame” made by ceiling, walls, and floor looks right to your eye.

Below are three window treatment tricks decorators love to use.

Hang Above the Window Frame

To create the illusion of a taller window, mount the rod above the window frame, about halfway between the frame and the ceiling molding. A track mounted on the ceiling also lengthens windows. Be sure to account for the extra fabric when measuring. Ms. Tucker might have done something of the sort in the vertical picture below. Who knows if the top of the valance is inline with the top of the window or not?

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Artist Thomas Burke of Wilmington, DE, built this luxury 9-foot tall birdhouse for George Lucas.

The George Lucas … Birdhouse

I was searching the Internet for interesting dollhouses and was excited to see this 19th-century “miniature.” It looked huge compared to the builder posing with it. I was disappointed to read the caption and discover that it was a custom birdhouse given to George Lukas of Star Wars fame as a Christmas present. This is a departure from the dollhouse miniature posts I usually, but it’s a beautiful construction, built by a talented craftsman. And it’s a pleasant story

I found this article on the Skywalker Ranch Birdhouse on Woodworking Network.

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Geoffrey Walkley and his Rainham Hall Dolls House, a replica of the 18th-century merchants’ mansion found on DailyMail.com

Rainham Hall Dolls House

Geoffrey Walkley took his time — 35 years — building the Rainham Hall Dolls House, a mammoth replica of a Queen Anne style merchants house. It has 13 rooms, working lights and smoking chimneys. The dolls house is based on the 18th century Rainham Hall, which took only 2 years to build.

Individually light switches are operated by remote control; six of the 14 chimneys are linked to a smoke generator; both front and back doors have a doorbell, while in a modern twist, the home includes an iPad Nano which powers the speaker in the music room.

Sarah Walkley, now aged 40, was five years old when she asked her father for the doll’s house on Christmas Eve 1978. The following is part of a feature story in the Daily Mail:

“My mum was tucking me in and I said I wanted a doll’s house from Father Christmas. She said he had packed his sleigh and left the Arctic but she went downstairs and mentioned it to my dad and he said he was going to build one.”

Devoted father Geoffrey came up with a blueprint so ambitious, Sarah says she began to lose hope of ever seeing it finished.

Click on the photograph for the full Daily Mail article, which includes pictures of the dollhouse interior. And here’s a link to images of the real Rainham Hall.

Susan Downing, with Patrick Owens

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I invite you to visit my Etsy Shop where I offer many accessories and pieces of furniture in 1:12 scale.