I was going to share a serendipitous story with you today.

But I just found out that one of the finest people I have ever known died yesterday. Ben Hopkin. He was a student of ours in the MFA program in San Diego. Rick and I auditioned him and brought him into the program. We stayed friends for all these years. Husband, father, defender of the marginalized, teacher, actor, director – he was all of that and more. He had been battling cancer and was doing well before he took a turn for the worse. He was posting about RBG from his hospital bed. I thought he would come through. It never occurred to me that he wouldn’t.

He had lymphoma, the same cancer that took my brother.

I am shaken to my core. I really loved Ben. He was kind and compassionate and funny and devoted to his Mormon faith, yet liberal and a feminist. I just found out the terrible news as I was starting to write a post, so please understand that I cannot write about anything other than Ben.

And my dad, whose birthday is today.

Too young. Much too young.

I am heartbroken.

Stay safe.

Happy Monday.

A note: Please know that I am enraged by the choice for the Supreme Court, enraged by everything, to be honest. I addressed it a bit on one of my IG stories, but I have to take today to stay away from everything associated with Mitch McConnell and Orange Man. I spent far too much time reading online yesterday, seeing outrage upon outrage. So today is my day of peace – hopefully. Thanks, friends. It’s self-care today.

Let’s talk about another dollhouse which sits on the bookshelves right next to my side of the bed. That means I look at them every evening and that often means trying to figure out what to do with it. It’s the Modern Dollhouse, the one I purchased from a woman in England. She designed the components and did a great job of it. It was very easy to put together. She designed four different floor configurations and I bought two (this was in the days of Margaritaville.) I was aware that she might eventually discontinue making it (and it looks like she has) so I went for it.

Anyway, I have a few pieces of furniture that have been in place for a while; the sofa, a chair, the modern coffee table, a couple of other pieces. There are two floors. Should I put in a kitchen? On what floor? What about a bedroom? Can I leave out the ever challenging and, frankly, boring bathroom?

So I just left it as is for a long time.

Enter this piece.

It’s a Barbara Vajnar/Bubba’s Minis corner cabinet. I’ve mentioned before that Barbara is retiring and selling her leftover inventory. I snapped this up a few months back, as I got it for a good price.

As with all of her pieces, it’s extraordinarily well made. I will admit it: I have a need to collect anything of hers I can get – but only at a reasonable price. Much of it is going for way more than I can afford. However, I got this one. It’s tall and it takes up a fair amount of space in a dollhouse, where, by nature the rooms are tiny. Hummingbird Cottage is full. No space. The English Cottage already has two cabinets. No room in Don’s Studio.  So where was I going to put it?

The only place it could go was in the Modern House.

And I realized it worked there. Most of you know that I need to come up with a story about each of my projects. I had no story for this one other than it was modern. That wasn’t enough. The addition of this piece took me off in a specific direction. I now envision it as a loft-like space owned by art collectors. Collectors who love folk art and graphic art and some sculpture and pottery – all of it an eclectic mix. But not cluttery. Everything is – there’s that word again – curated. So there’s that great piece of blue pottery on the red table and a big brown bowl next to it. The sheep prints on the wall – which I’m going to redo in a bigger size. The cabinet will be filled with some sort of collectable. The modern coffee table with the retro ashtray. Rugs here and there, plants, more folk art – all of that will be added over time. On a personal level, I love eclectic spaces. The difference between this eclectic space and the eclectic English cottage will be the expansive white space.

Anyway, it gave me the jump start I needed after a few years of absolutely no direction.

There are two floors:

The light from the windows in the bedroom make taking a photo without my reflection impossible, but you get the idea. The downstairs? Maybe a bedroom and kitchen with a divider of some sort between them. And a dining room table. And more art. (You can see the other Petite Princess chair in the background.)

Don loves this house. He imagines it at the beach. I see it as a loft somewhere. But maybe it’s an open loft-like space in Malibu or La Jolla. Uh oh, now I’m seeing a shiny baby grand….hmmm. Lots of potted plants in the area outside the front door, a door I might replace with two french doors.

I have lots of ideas for all the houses. Now to get going on them.

Stay safe.

Happy Sunday.

I’m a little late getting to this post because Don and I were chatting for a long time about our careers and the paths that led us there, the people who mentored us, the connections we made, the full circle moments…it was amazing. We only stopped because I had to write this post, Don had to use the bathroom, and he has phone banking training this morning. I did have it but I decided I’m more comfortable with text banking. I moved that training session from October 4th to tomorrow at 4 pm. So, we will have finished our respective training sessions by the end of the weekend.

I was thinking yesterday about the problems with scale in this antique dollhouse. My 1:12 furniture is too big. 1:24 would be too small. 1:16 might be right, I thought, so I grabbed some of the Petite Princess (by Ideal) furniture I had upstairs in the office and tried a few pieces in the living room.

Bingo. Petite Princess furniture was glitzy and sparkly and some of it is too much. I’ve used the white 3-drawer dresser in Hummingbird Cottage because it somehow works there, but that’s the only piece that translates to a different scale. I have another sparkly chair like these two (in gold) and a wing chair as well.

Here’s the wing chair on the screened in porch.

Of course, I don’t have to put anything in this house, it’s perfect as is. But I somehow feel the need to add some furniture here and there. It feels lonely just sitting empty. I’d love to leave most of it as is – yellow walls, red fireplaces – but add a couple of pieces of furniture (or more) to each room. A rug here and there, a painting on the wall…signs of life.

I was excited when I realized that scale worked perfectly. I could attempt to reupholster the chairs. That would be a challenge, but if it worked, it would transform the room.

I’ve talked about Petite Princess furniture before on the blog. Do you remember it? I loved it, I looked at the ads for it incessantly and I wanted my mom and dad to give me some for Christmas. Nope. Mom was not on board for that. I don’t know why. Maybe she suspected I’d get bored with it. I never forgot about it and years and years and years later, I found a couple of pieces in a local antique shop (the dresser and the gold wing chair) in their original boxes. I was just starting to work on Hummingbird Cottage. I snapped them up. Then a reader sent me some of her Petite Princess furniture and another reader sent me some as well. Now I have a nice little collection, some of which can be used in various spaces. My mom would have gotten a kick out of me amassing a collection in my fifties and sixties!

I have some ideas for the Modern dollhouse as well and I’ll share them with you tomorrow.

Stay safe.

Happy Saturday.