1940's Rich Southern Colonial Doll House

I took the opportunity to replace the windows in my other 1940's Rich Colonial Doll House today.  This house is slightly smaller than my other Rich house and porch is much less grand.

I did some research and the closest house I could find was in an advertisement for Christmas 1946. ( see below- top right)

The advertisement states "Two story, 6 room Southern Colonial type dollhouse with stairway.  Finished with black, green and red stenciled design.  Blinds and roof are green, porch floor is red with white columns and roof.  Painted floor with flocked rugs and stenciled linoleum.  Made of Gypsum Hardboard.  29-1/4" long, 21-1/4" high and 16-1/4" deep.  $4.69"

I found a currency converter online and $4.69 is roughly $100 in today's dollars.

 The existing windows were in really rough shape.  Its hard to tell from the photos, but they are cracked, starting to curl and the paint is cracking off them.  They also have years of layers of glue and cellophane tape.

 The photo shows the new replacements from the vinyl sign company

 I began by peeling off the cardboard backing ( shown in blue)

 I then placed the sticker on the sheet of mylar that I had cut to the correct size.

 Once the sticker was in place, I burnished it down with a plastic scraper.

Once the sticker was firmly adhered to the mylar, I peeled of the protective backing.

Voila! a shiny new window.

This detail shows the "linoleum" floors and the blue flocked rugs upstairs and the green flocked rugs down stairs.

The view shows the new windows in place.

 Some of the details I really like about this house is the circular cut-out on each side and the fluted columns on the front porch, along with the great printed graphics.

1940's Rich Colonial Mansion

I had some time this weekend to work on my 1940 Rich Colonial Mansion.  Some child long ago had some fun with circus stickers that I have been wanting to remove and the cellophane windows were long since gone as well.

The ad below from 1942 shows the house for sale for $15.  The ad photo also shows a lantern hanging on the porch.  The porch is what originally drew me to this house.  I love the large white round columns.

 I was reluctant to use chemicals, but the interior of this house is in pretty rough shape anyway.  I applied the chemical with a rag, let it sit for a few minutes and the old tape and stickers scraped right off.

I ordered a sheet of vinyl stickers to re-create the windows from a local vinyl sign company.  I ordered a couple of extra just in case!

 I applied the stickers to some sheets of clear mylar, then peeled off the backing and cut to a size that would allow for overlap and glue inside the house.

 I glued the new windows in place.  Up next I plan to apply some wallpaper, baseboards and window coverings.

 The porch has a red and white lithograph pattern that looks like tile.

 The floors were painted over at some point, but originally contained flocked rugs painted on the floors. Green on the first floor and light blue on the second floor. The stair banister lithograph is pretty detailed.

I put some black and white scrapbook paper with a checkerboard pattern in the kitchen.  It is a lot cleaner and crisper than the original floor which is also black and white checkerboard.

 The house has great graphics.

The house is currently where I keep my 1" Strombecker Walnut collection.  It can be seen by clicking HERE

Strombecker-walnut-1inch-scale

Strombecker-1-inch-collection

My 3/4" Strombecker collection can be seen here:

3/4" Strombecker collection 

Recent Aquisitions

I visited a couple of fruitful estate sales this past week.  At one, I happened upon this display of chairs, all scales and all sizes and styles.  Can you guess which ones I picked?

These are the two I selected.  They are close to 1"=1'-0 scale.  The metallic twisted wire one may be homemade?  I was drawn to this arch back spindle chair too.  It is made of medal and has nice lines.

Last week I came across a few miscelanious minis.  I broken coffee grinder, a toaster, a toilet plunger, a wooden hanger, and a letter holder.