Heat, Snow, and the Folk Art Dollhouse

Two interesting things happened this weekend. First, after turning the heat way down, wearing layers, covering ourselves with afghans, and basically being good soldiers since we knew we would have to wait until today at the earliest to get more heating oil, we were shocked on Saturday to hear the sound of a big truck stopping and then the beep, beep, beep of it backing up our driveway. My verbal response when I saw it, “Oh, my god!” Don’s: “I don’t believe it!” Our friends at our local oil supply had managed to get the much needed oil to us on Saturday, even though we were fully on board with waiting until Monday. We did ask them to flag the delivery so that the guys doing all that hard work would know we were low. What a gift! At first Don said that he was ever so slightly disappointed because he was primed to tough it out. But that quickly changed into, “We don’t have to worry about heat!” So we’re very, very grateful.

Second: We went to bed on Saturday night with snow falling, and a prediction of 5 to 9 inches landing overnight. We got up the next morning, looked outside (it was still a bit dark) and realized the amount was a lot less than predicted. I’d say there was about 3 inches. I checked in with our local weather guys and they had apparently posted a warning the night before that it might be a bust because they could see a lot of dry air in the mix. That’s exactly what happened. Mother Nature did her own thing and all the unexpected dry air greatly decreased the amount of snow. To us? Great news. We did have to shovel a lot yesterday and we were wiped out afterwards. (We try not to use the snowblower if it’s a lowish amount of snow because it always kicks up a lot of our gravel, hence the decision to shovel.) My back is complaining today, so I’m going to take it easy. As is Don.

While waiting to go outside and shovel yesterday, I putzed around with the Folk Art Dollhouse.

Quick reminder: this house opens on the sides and the roof. The side you can see in this photo opens up to the living room, what I think is the kitchen, and a long room upstairs. I had been organizing my French cabinet upstairs that holds my dollhouse furniture/accessories stash and I thought that I should use some of that furniture in this house. But remember, it is not to 1:12 scale. It’s closer to 1:16 or 1:18 scale. So I end up using a mix of my Petite Princess furniture and 1:12 furniture. It’s a mishmash, but I was feeling the need to start filling it up so it looked like someone was living there. A dollhouse, even if it’s vintage and one-of-a-kind, shouldn’t be empty. I won’t do anything permanent. It’s a piece of folk art and it needs to stay intact.

The living room. A 1:12 sofa (I have one just like this in Hummingbird Cottage,) a Petite Princess coffee table, another of my Petite Princess chests (I have 4 of them!) and a print I attached to the wall with wax.

A chair added to that long, narrow space that is the kitchen.

Some chairs added to the enclosed front porch. The blue chairs are Petite Princess, the other at the far end is one of the first pieces I purchased way back when.

That little Hallmark stove ornament I got a couple of years ago has been placed in the kitchen.

I put another sofa (Petite Princess) in the ‘other’ living room, which is on the opposite far side of the house. It’s hard to maneuver in there because, though the outside walls detach, the fireplace section in the middle is permanent, so you can never see the whole room. And it’s darker.

But it’s really too big for the space and while writing this, I had the inspiration to make this into the dining room. And I have a larger dining table in my stash. Just need some chairs. That mirror on the wall came with the house and I will never remove it.

Upstairs. There are two long rooms on either side of the stairway. I’m not sure what to do with them. As I looked at this particular space, I thought it could become a big creative space of some sort. Or the Master Bedroom. We’ll see.

Of course, all of this is temporary and I don’t want spend much, if any, money on it. I just love to see the rooms show some signs of life. And it’s a great way to use furniture that I have on hand.

Over the four or five years I’ve had this house, I occasionally get a request from someone wanting to buy it. Just got another one the other day. I won’t sell it, of course, especially since I wrote the price I purchased it for in that initial post, and since it was very inexpensive, it wouldn’t be worth it. But as Don said yesterday: “No. We are not selling it.”

So there you go.

Stay safe.

Happy Monday.