1970's Walmar House

I have been looking for a 1970's construction kind of house for my Hall's Lifetime furniture collection.  I have seen a few Hall's Lifetime Houses come up for auction on eBay, but they have been out of my price range.  I recently purchased this house online.  I liked it because it looked like it was from the right era and after a little research I was able to find out some great information on this particular house too.  The house also has a similar look to the Hall's Lifetime Dollhouses.

This house was manufactured by a company called Walmar.  Through a little internet research, I was able to track down a representative from the company.  The company no longer makes dollhouses, but they are still around making cabinetry.  The house was still in it's original box.  It came with the exterior pre-finished.  The architectural style is kind of cross between Colonial and Georgian. Historic styles like Colonial were very popular and copied due to the Bicentennial of the United States during the 1970's.  I myself, was riding on a float in the 1976 Bicentennial Parade dressed like historic firefighter!

I was able to correspond with a representative from the company and she told me that
they sold the dollhouse division in 1999. However they are  still very much involved in the company, which is now dedicated to cabinetry design and manufacturing. She also shared that as his wife and business partner, and that she too was involved with the dollhouse division back in the day.

She wrote, "The dollhouse in the photo you sent is among the first of our designs. It was manufactured around 1973-1974. It is the Colonial and was one of the largest dollhouses available at that time. It was also a "peg assembly" house. My father, who founded our company in 1972 and was a career USAF officer, designed dollhouses which could 'knock down'. As a military family always on the move, it was the only way he could conceive to design a dollhouse! This line of dollhouses was discontinued in the early to mid-80s.

The stairs are covered in in a dark green felt and have a Masonite 'trellis-like' rail.
I plan to give the house a 70's feel.  I have worked on projects that were Victorian, 1920's, 1930's, 1940's and modern.  It has been kind of fun and different working on something from the era that was my childhood.   I have worked past the "this is old" attitude, to the "this is kinda cool" attitude.  I can't wait to start on the interior.

I had to layout the furniture in each of the rooms to see how it was going to fit !  You can see the "pegs" if you look carefully, they are wood and have round balls on the end of them.  I can't wait to start working on it.