My First Dolls House

The Greenleaf Canterbury Dolls House

Before I knew anything about scale measurements, before I knew anything about working with wood, before I knew anything about miniatures in general - I built this dolls house.
   I was a total newbie to the hobby. One day I'd been at a friend's 60th birthday party and some of us were talking about how we had never had a dolls house when we were children. A week later I was walking past a hobby shop and saw the kitset for this one in the window. Five minutes later it was mine!
   It was a Greenleaf 'Canterbury' model. I liked the quaintness of the design. It took me many hours to sand the plywood, paper the walls and slot and glue them all together. I used a hot glue gun, not knowing that was 'frowned' on in miniatures circles.
  Finally the day came when my little blue house was standing, all wallpapered and painted, ready to be furnished. I even made a tiny birdhouse to match. I was so excited! I bought some furniture for the living room. It didn't fit. The house was smaller than 1:12 scale!
   So began my foray into improvising minis, making minis, adapting minis, and learning about dolls house scales. I'll write more about that in my next post.