My earliest dollshouse

My first dollshouse was actually shared with my sister, but somehow it was me who played with it more. It had in fact belonged to my mother when she was a little girl, and my grandfather took it to pieces and brought it overseas to us when I was about 4 years old. I can clearly remember watching him re-assemble it on the workbench in the garage, which had a convenient window overlooking the back garden, so I could tiptoe and peek in to see what my grandfather was doing. My grandparents had brought over some of the original furniture, and some new items for us, some of which inevitably got broken by small girls. My grandfather even took the trouble to run three lightbulbs on wires through the wood floors/ceilings to provide lights in the three rooms of this Triang house, the battery pack was hidden under the base of the house.

The house took a lot of knocks from two little girls and our friends, and after about 10 years of hard play, was sadly a bit worse for wear, even though very loved. So as a teenager, I did my best to restore it, which included giving it a new plywood roof, repapering and repainting. I didn't do a great job, but it was the best my existing skills could manage - I learned a lot in the process, and went on to build three simple dollshouses out of MDF which I sold, restored one that my cousin had played with, and built a smaller house as well which I also later sold.

Some years later when I had moved to the UK, I had the Triang house shipped back - so it travelled 12,000 miles altogether. It is now in my elder daughter's bedroom but is only occasionally played with now, as she has a larger house of her own. Maybe my little one will play with it soon.

The Triang house after I had repainted it. I wouldn't use gloss paint now, paint a horrible black line around the (original) flowers, nor would I use that large patterned wallpaper, but with supplies where the house was at the time very limited, I did the best I could with what was available. I made the little patchwork quilts for the beds - they really are separate squares sewn together.

I have not done anything else to the house since then - Triang houses in original condition are not worth millions, and this house shows its history of being loved and played with, which was the intention for Triang dolls houses.

This is the shell of one of the 3 houses I built to sell, when an older teenager. My dad's factory cut the main pieces to size from a larger sheet I bought, then I chizelled out all the windows and doors, because I didn't have a jigsaw. I did some woodworking classes after I made the dolls houses! I had fiddled around with bits of wood and tools in the garage for years, so had some basic skills.

Here is one of the houses, all painted up (I think this was the first one I made)

This is inside that house.

This is one of the other houses all painted up.

Inside that house