My Grandma told me during the Great Depression she would clip paper dolls out of the newspaper and her older brother would unfold a paper bag and draw a house on it for her to play with. She told me he would draw beds in the bedroom and cut little slots in them so she could tuck the dolls in.
As a little girl I made shoe boxes into doll houses. My parents didn't have the money to spend that much money on just one child. But I loved taping boxes together in different configuration and drawing picture with washable markers to my hearts content. They never lasted very long but once a year when all 5 kids got new shoes I'd have the biggest doll house I could ever want.
I took up dollhouses at age 51. It was in response to my mother coming to live with my family. I felt as if she stole my home and peace from me; constantly criticizing the way I did things. It was like I was 5 years old again, and had to try to be perfect. How understandable that I should disappear into the tiny world that my own hands could create. It very effectively shifts reality into being in the confines of the tiny walls that I can spend hours in. How gratifying to be able to create whatever my heart desires. No one to tell me that a couch with cherries printed on it is garish. Figuring out the lighting system and wiring it was as hard as real world electrical work. The whole process can be very engrossing. Fast forward a year later and I had her move out because my diabetes was becoming progressively worse from stress. My strained relationship with her was literally killing me. She is only ok. But I am healthier if a bit guilty. So it’s weird how therapeutic a dollhouse can be. A place where we can be little gods, where no one can browbeat us. Relationships are so hard. I love her, but cannot live with her. I hope that my children do not feel the same about me as I age more and more. I just had a fight with one of my adult sons. I walked away so I wouldn’t continue to talk; too afraid to do damage. Its as if duct tape is over my mouth and also is needed to bind the lobes of my heart together. I haven’t needed to disappear into the tiny world of my dollhouses since my mother moved out, but tonight I am feeling like a ghost in the real world. Is there still a place inside my own mind? Will tiny tables and miniature tea sets become soothing once again? I’m pretty sure that my son didn’t know how he hurt my heart. I don’t want him to. But it will take a little while to become soft, open and kind again. It seems that it is always someone or something that is hurting me. If it’s not a adult child it’s my husband. The heartbreaks are regular, and I am left gasping. What little house shall I go hide in? Can I go sit there and pray? I want to repair to be ready to join the real world again. I wrote this whole thing because of the picture of you with your doll as a young lady. I wanted to tell you that the world of creativity and imagination is a place that can be a comfort regardless of age. I am not saying that I don’t feel a little bit weird doing it, but it helps. If I can be forgiving because I can retreat into a dollhouse world because I feel safer there, maybe it’s okay. Thank you for your wonderful video. I also really enjoyed the expose on AD house visits. It’s nice to know how fake all of the hype is. Many good wishes to you. You are quite a wise young woman.
I ❤️ your comment. I have an adult son. My mother passed away 4 years ago, and I had to go no contact with my only sibling. I relate to some things in your comment all too well. Years ago, I closed myself off as much as I could while enjoying various hobbies, including dolls and a thrifted dollhouse. It is a great escape from the full- size version of life.
I got into dollhousing (and scale modeling in general) around my late teens/early 20s. It took me a long time to view myself as an “artist” in the circles and really hone my craft. It’s been there for me through everything, relationships, grief, loss, joy, love. It even kept a roof offer my head and my belly.. well, not full, but not empty for a few years. I very much wish I could do it to support myself, but your story is nice and inspiring to hear from someone that had a much different journey to me,. Thank you for sharing it
Your perspective makes so much sense. I also believe a dollhouse or similar creation is a way to create an existence that was denied or impossible to achieve for many reasons. I look forward to having a workroom/studio where I can create a rambling Mouse Mansion/Borrowers/Moomin inspired structure - tucked in a corner providing escape, but also expression to unrealized environments. Take good care. 💗💗💗
I got into dollhouse making in 2020 when I was 43. It started out as one room, and I now have a 5 story, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house with a library, living room, kitchen/dining room combo, spacious attic, 2 rec rooms, and a balcony. It's not made from a $500 kit-- I'm too poor for that. No, it's mostly made out of things that would normally go in the trash. Cardboard boxes, bottle caps, scrap paper, recycled clothing. There are 35 inhabitants at present, some of those dolls I made myself. It was hard...but it was fun, and I'm happy with the result. I like to think of it as a miniature version of the home I'd wanna live in.
When you talked about planning out where your real-life furniture will go by remaking everything in the Sims, I squealed! I had no idea that other people did that too. The Barbie-to-Sims pipeline is real.
It's comforting to see how long adults and kids have been fascinated by tiny versions of their own (and make-believe) worlds. I love all of your videos! So glad I found this channel.
My dollhouse as a kid was literally just a thrifted bookshelf with furniture from yard sales and I couldn't have been happier; in my mind it was a chic high-rise in a metropolitan area.
There is a similar experience with historic clothing. High class and court clothing survived much longer than middle and lower class clothing, simply because it was used and worn out. It really schews our impression of what clothing looked like.
I literally did not even think about my dollhouses growing up until minute 20. I was like, 'I don't think I had a doll house, did I?' Then I remembered the 4 (!) doll houses I played with growing up, at home, at other peoples houses. Wow! So much nostalgia and sweet memories. Thank you!
in the 17th century wealthy young girls would embroider a casket in order to learn different types of stitches/show off what they knew. there's this awesome casket that the v&a has that has a miniature garden inside! it was likely that the girl who embroidered the casket also made the garden, and some scholars theorize that bc the "statues" in the garden are on little pegs they may have meant to have been moved around and played with! so basically this was a 17th century polly pocket is what i'm saying (also this is such a fun and well researched video!!)
related to the butter box doll furniture from the depression, I know that flour companies used different prints on their sacks so that people could make clothes out of them.
I had the 60’s tin dollhouse when I was a kid. My dog used to like to grab furniture out of it and eat the furniture. I desperately wanted a real wooden house that I could decorate myself. Finally at 17yo, I wore them down and they bought me an unfinished wooden house. I stained the floors and the stairs. I primed and painted and wallpapered the interior. Also put in chair rails and window molding. I made the curtains, about half the furniture, and collected the rest. I even made a quilt and matching pillows for the bed. My HS boyfriend’s mom needlepointed an area rug for the living room. I took it to college with me for a homework assignment on principles of design. I still have it. You have inspired me to take it out of the basement and bring it to my office for display. Thank you! Keep up the great videos!
This was fascinating, I'm also obsessed with 'miniatures'. I make myself feel a bit guilty because dollhouses 'are for children', but I never lost my love for them
we all started off as kids! we've grown and changed since then, but it's sad that adulthood and childhood are so often framed as opposites/two separate states of existence -- I like to think of childhood as foundations of a building (a dollhouse, perhaps) and adulthood as both building upon and going back and strengthening/repairing those foundations!
My aunt is 10 years older than me, and my grandpa built her a beautiful 3 story wooden doll house with working lights. I used to be so jealous and I don't know how many times I asked to take it home. Every plastic dollhouse I had when I was a kid was just so inadequate when I knew that one existed.
I had the 1969 Barbie and Stacy Sleep and Keep case. I both loved it and was very, very conflicted about it. I came from a huge family and the notion that even as an adult I’d have to share a bedroom was deeply depressing. There was a closet area but the teeny hangers either got lost or stolen by my cat, so Barbies clothes had to live in a cedar chest I improvised from a cigar box and anyway, it would be many decades before I was seduced by Marie Kondo into neatly storing clothes as a form of soothing control. However, the beds remained eternally made (another chore I hated), and the colors were spectacular-all the clashing electric colors of the era with exciting touches of black. It did frustrate me that no furniture could be moved around but on the other hand, these women had such exciting lives they had neither a kitchen or a dining room and no time between jobs and dates to need such things. They just flitted in and out of the place to change clothes or collapse for the night in their chaste pink single beds.
My sister and I used to build our own dollhouses for our Barbies out of a chair and books, and use VHS tapes as beds and sofas. We'd spend a good half-hour building our sets before starting play. Every time they were different, and it's something I look back on very fondly. I did have an actual wooden dollhouse built for me by my grandfather, but it was too short for Barbie, so it was a house for my Beanie Babies.
My grandparents owned a doll house shop from the 1960s until the early 2000s. Most of the customers were adults buying houses and furniture for their hobby. They had electricity and working ceiling fans and things.
I had a tin dollhouse as a kid in the 1960s. I cut myself on it and my dad made me a wood one which I still have at 62. During COVID I reconnected with the miniatures hobby, but I had never really let go of it... I took a kit Victorian dollhouse to college with me to keep it safe from my younger brothers and sisters. There's a huge international dollhouse community on social media, and I love being part of that.
I desperately wanted a dollhouse as a child. But we were in the military, and every couple of years my mom handed me a small cardboard box and anything I wanted to keep had to fit in that one box. I also never had a Barbie, or the 72 color crayon a collection with silver and gold, and a built in sharpener. I’m 70 years old and I’m still sad about that.
I had a similar sadness about the toys I didn't have. I'm 62 and two months ago, I bought a doll house kit and I'm having the best time with it- painting, wallpapering, sewing little things for it, making furniture and kitchen cabinets. My husband thinks I'm nuts but I don't care. The world of miniatures is just so FUN!
My brother and I each had that box of crayons on our wish list for Christmas, but my mom bought us each the 48. Big disappointment, although we had many other gifts. We both became ariists anyway. I never bought the crayons, but I did buy the largest markers and watercolour pencil sets available, and those have more than 78 colours each.
My cousins and I got a gorgeous elaborate wooden dollhouse, tiny doors, many rooms, a fireplace, etc. It didn't come with furniture but it was a masterpiece and made by hand for sure! The size ratio makes sense now, haha. Barbies def didn't fit, but its was great for Kellys! Sadly it burned in a fire along with the dolls...Had some plastic ones too! One that had a dance floor that spins by a handle! And a paper dollhouse that was a book you could open a certain way.
This breaks my heart a little as my dad built me a beautiful doll house, but when my parents eventually downsized and moved the dollhouse must have been donated. Since I grew up in a time before digital cameras I don't think there is even a photo of it. I remember though it had real cedar shingles on the roof, and constructed all the furniture. It have this beautiful huge series of windows along the back centre. It will at least vividly live on in my memories!
The Avon Holy Family lived on the 3rd floor of my kids’ Fisher Orice doll house. Batman did all the cooking and the Beanie Baby Polar Bear drove the Barbie Jeep and the jet. When we had baby sitters it was fun to see what they did with the house after the kiddos went to bed. It was a way I could determine how engaged a sitter was. Tips increased with good imagination. It broke my heart to give away the set and all the inhabitants. Thank you for this amazing piece.
So many memories unlocked! Before watching this, I would have told you that I didn't play with dollhouses, because I had forgotten about the ones my neighbors had that we played with all the time. Thanks for the fun video!
My grandfather made me a beautiful dollhouse when I was a kid. He has some astounding carpentry skills- every roof tile and every wood floor slab was made and placed by hand. Because of these details, it took him a few years to make, and unfortunately by the time it was gifted to me, I was around 12-13 and fading out of playing with dolls. I did play with it a little bit but not much. As an adult, I decided I was going to "restore" it and fully decorate it for display, but I'm having way more fun using it as a home for my childhood Playmobil. 😊 So I've come full circle back to playing 😂
I would have never remembered the Bratz foldable house you showed at the end if not for this video! And it opened up sooo many memories for me. Following that up with your reminder to document our own history/doll houses nearly made me tear up! What an important reminder and amazing video.
I had a Barbie RV my mom got for me at a garage sale when I was a kid and oddly, a Barbie shower that had running water, as well as a foldable one room kind of thing made of cardboard covered in plastic and, outside of the Barbie universe I had a 4 room doll house built from a kit out of balsa wood. I also remember making furniture for my Barbies out of shoe box, fabric scraps, stuffing and a hot glue gun. Your observations about the sims are interesting, I am currently playing an MMORPG that has player housing and its really cool to see what people create. Some designers go out of their way to build super modern spaces by exploiting glitches in the game to utilize existing furnishings in novel ways to create an illusion. Beyond just doll houses, its fascinating to see how the player base interacts with character customization, "glam" as they call it is very important to a lot of players and it transcends gender. Gaming really creates a space where everyone can virtually "play with dolls" without gender bias.
The paper butter furniture reminds me of my favorite restaurant as a kid: Ruby’s Diner. It was 1950s themed with motorcycles on pedestals, a toy train that ran loops around the restaurant on a track suspended from the ceiling, and kids menus that were printed on paperboard and perforated so they could be folded up into models of 1950s cars
Dollhouses were a big part of my childhood. My parents built me a dollhouse as a child (dad built, mom decorated) and I loved playing with it. On the "document" side my grandparents were into making and collecting miniatures, and had both dollhouse scenes and an incredibly detailed bakery. I distinctly remember the beautiful tiny copper pot set that my grandfather made out of some copper plumbing fittings.
I like the drawer idea under the house. Means you don't have to lie on your stomach to play with the bottom floor. That always used to bug me as i didn't have a table for my dolls house.
I have a dollhouse. There used to be specific stores that sold porcelein dolls and dollhouses. There used to be maybe one in every town, even in the mid-90s. But it really fell out of favor. It is really a lost art. None of the stores I used to visit as a kid exist anymore.
Wait I think I remember this, I saw kits to add electric wiring and appliances to the rooms and it blew my mind. I remember the wallpapers and flooring in particular too. I think i must have been allowed to choose furniture that day we went in, but not dolls strangely enough. I used McDonald's barbies in mine, which happened to be about the right size
Today I started with the witch house video of yours and haven't stopped watching your videos for 3 hours straight. Why does the algorithm suggest you now? Where have you been in my timeline and feed? Ugh! Immediately subscribed. Thought I'd leave a comment praising your content before I lurk in the shadows watching your content in the years to come.
I'm currently building a dollhouse that is an homage to 1970s design. I highly recommend building a dollhouse. The problem solving and design have been super fun.
My (upper middle class) grandparents had a Victorian doll house. It was huge and incredibly detailed. My (working class) grandfather built a bungalow dollhouse with working lights in the 60s I got to play with both. I now build Lego Modular buildings, which are aimed at adults but are basically doll houses.
I didn't have the barbie dreamhouse, but I did have the camper van. Which is funny because shortly after I grew out of dolls we lived on a converted bus for the rest of my childhood. So it did prepare me for life, but not in a way anyone was expecting! I also had the polly pocket clock where they lived in the top but sadly that never became relevant in my life. So far anyway, we live in hope.
my grandpa was a carpenter/tinkerer and he built my aunt a SUPER elaborate dollhouse with tons of intricate furniture, working lights, and just SO many little details, the walls opened like doors on either side and it was HUGE- he started building one for my mom, but as is the curse of the younger sibling, never got around to finishing it
I had a little mermaid playset as a toddler that I have been unable to find on the internet! It was probably 12”x12”, had different partitions supposed to represent different scenes from the movie, and little plastic figurines of the characters. I think it was probably released 98/99 by Mattel
"RIP to the Amateur UA-camr." (9:05 The pause button is my friend). I have been binge-watching you all day. I love your mix of architecture, history, and humour! 🙂
I'm so glad I found this video! I had a Playmobil Victorian dollhouse for ten years but it was such a mess by the time we moved across the country that my parents wouldn't let me pack it. I had boxes and boxes of Playmobil furniture but also other kinds of miniatures, and I also used to take the dolls' hair off and make hair out of polymer clay. It was everywhere.
Our ( myself ( now 73!), younger sister and step sister) built our doll house all over the bedroom floor and had to be careful walking! One of my favorite items was the blue plastic shaker bit from Morton's Salt ( two layers the perforated one and the cover part) that I used as a waffle maker!
Its so funny this came out when it did because I was just finishing up a spinning wheel of different Barbie's so I could decorate a house in the Sims because i wanted to feel alive again (I also have a migraine and nothing better to do). I always loved the doll house more than actual dolls as a kid. I would spend most of my time making sure my Playskool doll house was just so before even thinking about my dolls. Some of that could have been because my Barbies couldn't fit in it but even when I got to see my cousins whose house was a barbie / fashion doll dream land I would still spend hours on which ever doll house I was given.
Stettheimer dollhouse has a working elevator! Also, I'm a year late, but my grandfather was a master woodworker and a historic architecture enthusiast who started building a dollhouse for my aunt in the seventies based on a house in Colonial Williamsburg. He didn't finish it, and then tried it again for my older cousin, but I was the lucky duck who finally got to work on making it with him and inherited it about forty years after the shell was initially built. It has six-over-six double hung windows with panes made of thin sheets of mica. He was also a geology expert. Legend.
Me and my sisters went to minature museum in Colorado and it's so fun to see the western and native American influences in these houses down to pottery and silversmithing
Fascinating video! The Strong National Museum (in Rochester, NY) has an entire section dedicated to old doll houses. It’s an incredible document! And The Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago has a 1920s fairy tale castle that is 9x9 feet and 12 feet tall. Both are worth visiting! 😊
until watching this, I hadn't thought of the topic for around a half century, but it reminded me of my own experience being inspired by the craft of miniatures, that goes beyond doll houses, for example: railroad sets. miniatures are fascinating in the skill needed to make tiny details by hand and to maintain proper scaling across so many different objects so that they may be combined realistically. Thinking back on it, I missed the opportunity to pursue that kind of craft, instead being drawn to the new-thing at the time, 8 bit computing and raster-scan graphics compatible with tube televisions. I would rather had spent my time developing skills at making miniatures, it would have been much more rewarding.
I'm 59. Back when they started to see that those foldable, portable Barbie houses would be a lucrative item, iI had one of the first suitcase-type ones. It was made of that lightly padded vinyl they used for lots of things back in the early 70s. This was before the totally pink times, so mine had lots of bright colors. It folded up to about 16"×16"×3", if I remember rightly, and had a handle for easy transport. Also, all the furiture was built into the walls, that folded out like a pop-up book. There was even a little, round sort of metallic decal as a mirror on the wall over the "vanity". It was only 2 rooms, because just how many rooms of Barbie scale can you get in that small of a space. I loved that house and played it literally to death. The vinyl walls and furniture started to dry out and break down after a while, making the furniture parts tear off. I played with it anyway, right up until I started my horse phase and forgot about Barbie. I also had a Barbie airplane, which was a lot like the camper vans and plastic houses. I was never that interested in it, though. I had never been on a plane back then, so I had no idea how Barbie and her friendss would act in one. All the little, plastic dollhouse furniture and dinnerware that came with the plane got lost or broken pretty quickly, partly because they were great for being crushed and broken by my brother with his Barbie-sized G.I.Joes. during thier "missions". Oh, how I wish I had some of his larger-sized Joes now. They are very, very rare now, especially the ones that had flocked hair and beards, before the hair began being molded on to the action figure's head, like my brother had. (Call them dolls and get a punch in the stomach from their "commander".)
I haven’t even watched a minute and I already came here to say that everyone need to go to the Toys and Miniatures museum in KC! So many amazing dollhouses 😍
I've never seen a dollhouse like the one I grew up with. It was meticulous and crafted in delicate wood. Thanks for encouraging loading it up online. If I ever come across the photos of it I will.
We have a wooden dollhouse that's absolutely massive and has working lights and light switches. It has big stairs and an outdoor space too. My mum and uncle played with it when they were kids and so did I. And now I have it and our future child will play with it too. But, I also had a Barbie dollhouse. Well, Shelly's house, actually. I remember being very disappointed when I couldn't get the rug sticker on straight. It also came with a swing and a slide, I believe.
Adore this video! I love how you manage to be concise and detailed! You give me just enough fun historical detail and specifics, without any irrelevant/ boring historical backstory. So cool, hearing about all these historical doll houses. I love your analysis about the histography of doll houses, and the impact of class. The document/play scale is such a good way of putting it. And I love your humour
My mum got a wooden shell, and then worked with me to decorate it and fill the house. A mix if her dollshouse furnitute, new stuff that I saved up and things we made. My brother had his own 'extra attatchment' room because he wanted to join in. I also made a set of treehouses for Robinhood.
Awesome video! My favorite dollhouse growing up was the Playmobil Victorian dollhouse, and I still have and cherish it. I'm house hunting, mentally planning out what my home office/library will look like, and I plan to put that dollhouse on full display when I have the space for it and eventually pass it on to my kids, if I ever have any. Same goes for my American Girl dolls. I had Samantha growing up and got Kirsten when I was older. I had Samantha's big picture book "dollhouse," if you can call it that, but I think owning the trunks are a key part of feeling like you have a dollhouse for the AG girls. To this day I love collecting AG items, especially from the Pleasant Company days. There was so much care, attention, and heart in the details back in the early days of the company and brand
I had a little old 4 room dollhouse (1960s?) that had functional LED porcelain lamps as a kid. Loved that thing. It disappeared like many of my other toys when I stopped using them for a few years to make room in the house. Miss that thing now.
Been waiting for your channel to appear forever. When I was a kid my local library got a copy of “The Ultimate Dollhouse Book” by Faith Eaton forward by Flora Gill Jacobs. It was a major for me!! I came back to the library as a teenager and I saw the book on the sale rack. They saw inside that I was the only person who ever took it out and gave it to me. Also wanted to note that Stromer House from 1639 also has a walker included in its contents safety reigns.
I’m 67, still have my dollhouse and my petite princess furniture. I redecorated my house a few years ago and plan to do so again. I love miniatures and making tiny food etc. still have my 1965 Barbie, enjoyed making clothes for it, but enjoyed my dollhouse more. I do like moving the furniture about just as I do my home furniture. Tiny is so much easier to move about.
The replicas of the ones Kendra mentioned are still available. I have also seen one for a dolls' house made recently on one of the dolls house channels- I hope I have it correct: worlds of wonder- from Australia- lovely channel to check out.
I was never big on dolls growing up but I always had little dinosaurs and animal figurines, and I remember making houses for them out of milk crates stacked up in my closet. I loved finding small items to use in the houses and arranging them to look like a comfy home. I'd spend hours in there decorating and playing their lives out.
I really enjoyed this. The animals living below is a German thing also. There is a homesteader on UA-cam who has a house where all of his hand animals are on the first floor. It is very interesting to see how they had the one central fireplace and the rooms with all of the food essentials. Martin Luther hung on the wall of the nursery. That’s hilarious.
The printed tin houses of the 60’s with their plastic furniture, Flatsies in their framed rooms, Barbie vinyl carriers with drawers & hangers & the homemade clothes. What marvelous, simple memories. Would love to have them all back! 😂
I had a Barbie dollhouse that folded into a rolling suitcase! It was technically more of a doll apartment, I guess. The bed folded down from the wall and was also over the bathtub and there were real dressers. It was so cool
Ever, since I was a young kid, I had always dreamed of owning a doll house, especially electrified, so that I could watch as a Queen Anne three story mansion can come to life. In my grasp. Seeing the kids at hobby shops of the unpainted models was always such a delight, as I got older, and had less space, I realize that I am less enamored with the inside, but more with the outside, which might be one of the reasons why I started building model for sides in order to slake my interest in some thing without it, taking up much room because it’s practically flat
Found this channel today and have already watched like 5 videos. This is such a great video. It also made me reflect on the gendered play my family engaged in. As three siblings within 5 years of eachother we played a ton together and one of our favorites was “Junior town” named after my brother’s beloved stuffed animal and made of pieces of cardboard boxes stacked like tenaments in a shared closet. As we grew up my sister got her doll house and us boys got rescue heroes and our play time became intensely gendered from then on. The thing is? My brother and I were also just playing with dolls and dollhouses ours were just shaped like firefighters and police stations.
You brought up so many memories for me, of playing in a fisher price dollhouse that had a corresponding computer game?? And having a mini miniature castle (the whole thing was like 10 inches tall but opened up with a ballroom inside and 2 cm tall figures). And then a couple years later playing with my little sister who got that folding barbie house
I really enjoyed this! Are you familiar with illustrator Tasha Tudor's dollhouse? When she held a wedding for two of her dolls (in the 1950s, I think), it was featured in Life Magazine, and there's a book all about her and the dollhouse. Tudor was so eccentric and I'm kind of obsessed with her.
Your channel is so underrated! I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to research, document, and showcase the history of dollhouses! You are so thorough and passionate, and I love your sense of humor and personality! I also loved all your Gilmore Girls videos! ❤🎉😊
When I was a child I had a metal doll house. The walls were pre-printed with wall paper or plain colours . When we moved across Canada, I don't remember seeing it ever again.
Kendra you are becoming my favorite channel real quick. I was always obsessed with dolls and dollhouses. The first one I made with my mom out of shoe boxes. It had contact paper with a wooden print as the flooring and floral paper on the walls. Later on I had Barbies of course, and also MyScene dolls, but my absolute favorite were the Lego Scala Dolls. I got a cardboard dollhouse from IKEA for them, it was like 4 floors high and seemed huge as a child. I only stopped playing with dolls in middle school. I have also been playing Sims since age 7 so creating stories with little people has been my passion the majority of my life. If I ever end up having disposable income I I hope to one day be able to make victorian looking dollhouses.
I had a wooden 2 story doll house that I played with my 101 dalmatian playsets with. I didn't have any furniture so it fit. Later on I got the radio Barbie house that I used with my Barbie and Bratz dolls. It was usually just the kitchen area and I set up a more elaborate "house" on my floor in my bedroom. I'm also an avid Sims player. Starting with Sims 1. For my daughter's 2nd birthday we got her the Little People Barbie Dream house. She was super into playing with her little people and it was a perfect fit. It's a nice large doll house, bigger than the regular little people one. She plays with it every day.
Awesome video and great suggestion to document our dollhouses past and present. I was a big fan of polly pockets as a kid, and I really wish I still had them. Luckily I still have several MyScene and Calico Critter furniture sets
I had the 1993 Playskool Victorian dollhouse in pink and white. I had like 95% of the props and accessories for it, that continued to be sold well thru 1998, as I would get more pieces for Easter and Xmas and my birthdays. I didn't have the stable with the horse though, and I didn't have the boy/brother figurine, and I didn't have alternate family #2. But I loved it. I was forced to get rid of it in 2002, I wish I hadn't. I wish I'd kept it. I would still be playing with it. I miss it so much!
I love this video so much! It made me remember my dolls house. One of the few home videos we have of the early 00's includes me getting it for christmas! I don't know what happened to it, but I remember it was covered in crayon scribbles because I wanted to "redecorate" and there was an old mint tin filled with salt and pepper for the doll's dinner.
500 years and not a single mention of the most important dollhouse of my childhood: the one of that episode of "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" where the girl slowly turns INTO a doll!
I had that tin dollhouse as a child!! It was a gift to me from my elderly babysitter. It had been here when she was a child!!! I would give anything to still have that house for posterity!!! I loved that thing sooooo much!!!
I also made a wooden replica of the house we lived in for my oldest daughter when she was a child and saved my Pennie’s to buy her a Barbie Dream House a few years later!! I bought my youngest daughter a Madeline Doll House when she was about 7!!! Doll houses have always been a beautiful part of my memories and those I made for my girls. 💜💜💜
This is my new favourite channel! I remember loving a 3ft dollhouse my uncle made for me and made my dad paint all pink. I think my youngest cousin has it now.
I had the Barbie Swan Lake Castle and a Polly Pocket water park that looked like the one in the games. I remember my aunt had this large wooden doll house that had nothing in it, it had ten rooms but no flooring or wallpaper. I remember wanting to play with it but my aunt really didn't like us being upstairs for long so I never got to, but I still think about it. My mom bought some fairy garden stuff and we were making a village together, but that was short lived. I watch people make all sorts of doll houses most of which obviously aren't for play and I just promise myself I'll have the time and the money some day.
I'm wondering how Lego falls in line with the idea of a doll house. The figures are basically dolls, and there were so many sets for medieval, modern structures. I'm 37 and still have all my original sets from the 90's, many of which were castle structures that could be opened like those doll houses.
(Love this vid, great job) What drives me insane about dolls these last 15ish years, especially barbie, are peoppe freaking out that she's unrealistic, that we're "meant" to be like her in the sense of *looking* like her. Karen, I *know* that I'm not gonna grow up looking like barbie because I was taught that we're all different and grow differently. I *know* that I'm not gonna look like barbie and frankly I don't want to because I don't want to be limited to *only* convertables because I'm so tall my head sticks over the windshield. My parents got very nervous when I said I wanted to be like barbie when I grew up and I didn't understand their very heavy silent pause before asking "...why?" I proceeded to list off every positive thing about her from her various career choices to her intelligence, her large group of friends and small but close family, all her pets and adventures... "She's pretty, too..." I remember saying hesitantly as an after thought, "and I hope to be pretty and beautiful like her, too, but I know my body probably won't grow to match hers because even if she was real, we'd still be different people and people grow differently."
after being recommended your video, about the AD tours, from a tiktok, I have been watching your videos and I love them sm. I've found my new favorite niche of content thanks to you
Hi there, I love your channel! The Christmas I was 10, 1973, I received a house for my Dawn dolls. I think it was my favorite present ever, even now 51 years later! The house was made of orange and yellow plastic and filled with orange and yellow furniture 💛 🧡! It was glorious. I wish I still had my Dawn dolls and their groovy 🏠 house!
My sister was a huuuge fan of Friends and my favorite episode was the one with the dollhouse: Monica's inherited dollhouse was very much a document and Phoebe's was a whimsy and playful and reminiscent of the shoebox dollhouses I would make for my dolls.
i got my master’s in public history and for one of my classes, i had to make an online museum exhibit and i did it on dollhouses throughout the centuries!! i wish i had included some of the examples you talked about. loved this video 😊
My Grandma told me during the Great Depression she would clip paper dolls out of the newspaper and her older brother would unfold a paper bag and draw a house on it for her to play with. She told me he would draw beds in the bedroom and cut little slots in them so she could tuck the dolls in.
What an incredibly thoughtful and loving brother your Grandma had.
What a great brother!
That's so sweet
As a little girl I made shoe boxes into doll houses. My parents didn't have the money to spend that much money on just one child. But I loved taping boxes together in different configuration and drawing picture with washable markers to my hearts content. They never lasted very long but once a year when all 5 kids got new shoes I'd have the biggest doll house I could ever want.
that's so cool!
I took up dollhouses at age 51. It was in response to my mother coming to live with my family. I felt as if she stole my home and peace from me; constantly criticizing the way I did things. It was like I was 5 years old again, and had to try to be perfect. How understandable that I should disappear into the tiny world that my own hands could create. It very effectively shifts reality into being in the confines of the tiny walls that I can spend hours in. How gratifying to be able to create whatever my heart desires. No one to tell me that a couch with cherries printed on it is garish. Figuring out the lighting system and wiring it was as hard as real world electrical work. The whole process can be very engrossing. Fast forward a year later and I had her move out because my diabetes was becoming progressively worse from stress. My strained relationship with her was literally killing me. She is only ok. But I am healthier if a bit guilty. So it’s weird how therapeutic a dollhouse can be. A place where we can be little gods, where no one can browbeat us. Relationships are so hard. I love her, but cannot live with her. I hope that my children do not feel the same about me as I age more and more. I just had a fight with one of my adult sons. I walked away so I wouldn’t continue to talk; too afraid to do damage. Its as if duct tape is over my mouth and also is needed to bind the lobes of my heart together. I haven’t needed to disappear into the tiny world of my dollhouses since my mother moved out, but tonight I am feeling like a ghost in the real world. Is there still a place inside my own mind? Will tiny tables and miniature tea sets become soothing once again? I’m pretty sure that my son didn’t know how he hurt my heart. I don’t want him to. But it will take a little while to become soft, open and kind again. It seems that it is always someone or something that is hurting me. If it’s not a adult child it’s my husband. The heartbreaks are regular, and I am left gasping. What little house shall I go hide in? Can I go sit there and pray? I want to repair to be ready to join the real world again. I wrote this whole thing because of the picture of you with your doll as a young lady. I wanted to tell you that the world of creativity and imagination is a place that can be a comfort regardless of age. I am not saying that I don’t feel a little bit weird doing it, but it helps. If I can be forgiving because I can retreat into a dollhouse world because I feel safer there, maybe it’s okay. Thank you for your wonderful video. I also really enjoyed the expose on AD house visits. It’s nice to know how fake all of the hype is. Many good wishes to you. You are quite a wise young woman.
I ❤️ your comment. I have an adult son. My mother passed away 4 years ago, and I had to go no contact with my only sibling. I relate to some things in your comment all too well. Years ago, I closed myself off as much as I could while enjoying various hobbies, including dolls and a thrifted dollhouse. It is a great escape from the full- size version of life.
I got into dollhousing (and scale modeling in general) around my late teens/early 20s. It took me a long time to view myself as an “artist” in the circles and really hone my craft. It’s been there for me through everything, relationships, grief, loss, joy, love. It even kept a roof offer my head and my belly.. well, not full, but not empty for a few years. I very much wish I could do it to support myself, but your story is nice and inspiring to hear from someone that had a much different journey to me,. Thank you for sharing it
Your perspective makes so much sense. I also believe a dollhouse or similar creation is a way to create an existence that was denied or impossible to achieve for many reasons. I look forward to having a workroom/studio where I can create a rambling Mouse Mansion/Borrowers/Moomin inspired structure - tucked in a corner providing escape, but also expression to unrealized environments. Take good care. 💗💗💗
I got into dollhouse making in 2020 when I was 43. It started out as one room, and I now have a 5 story, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house with a library, living room, kitchen/dining room combo, spacious attic, 2 rec rooms, and a balcony. It's not made from a $500 kit-- I'm too poor for that. No, it's mostly made out of things that would normally go in the trash. Cardboard boxes, bottle caps, scrap paper, recycled clothing. There are 35 inhabitants at present, some of those dolls I made myself. It was hard...but it was fun, and I'm happy with the result. I like to think of it as a miniature version of the home I'd wanna live in.
This is beautiful ❤❤❤
When you talked about planning out where your real-life furniture will go by remaking everything in the Sims, I squealed! I had no idea that other people did that too. The Barbie-to-Sims pipeline is real.
It's comforting to see how long adults and kids have been fascinated by tiny versions of their own (and make-believe) worlds. I love all of your videos! So glad I found this channel.
My dollhouse as a kid was literally just a thrifted bookshelf with furniture from yard sales and I couldn't have been happier; in my mind it was a chic high-rise in a metropolitan area.
yess we had a small drawer/shelf/cabinet combo and it made such a good apartment for stuffed animals and Barbies
Wonderful!
Frances Glessner Lee created death scene doll houses to teach people how to do forensics in real life. It’s fascinating!
They were totally incredible, what an artist and detective mindset.
Enough to give you nightmares! 💀
I was going to comment about Frances as well. I may have went down a rabbit hole last year viewing her dioramas. Absolutely incredible stuff!
They had it on display in Washington, DC a few years back.
There is a similar experience with historic clothing. High class and court clothing survived much longer than middle and lower class clothing, simply because it was used and worn out. It really schews our impression of what clothing looked like.
I literally did not even think about my dollhouses growing up until minute 20. I was like, 'I don't think I had a doll house, did I?' Then I remembered the 4 (!) doll houses I played with growing up, at home, at other peoples houses. Wow! So much nostalgia and sweet memories. Thank you!
in the 17th century wealthy young girls would embroider a casket in order to learn different types of stitches/show off what they knew. there's this awesome casket that the v&a has that has a miniature garden inside! it was likely that the girl who embroidered the casket also made the garden, and some scholars theorize that bc the "statues" in the garden are on little pegs they may have meant to have been moved around and played with! so basically this was a 17th century polly pocket is what i'm saying (also this is such a fun and well researched video!!)
I'm 60, and I have a 1 12th scale dollhouse with lighting 😊 I don't think dollhouses will ever go out of style.
related to the butter box doll furniture from the depression, I know that flour companies used different prints on their sacks so that people could make clothes out of them.
That is such a great way to give use to something. Would that they did these things today.
I had the 60’s tin dollhouse when I was a kid. My dog used to like to grab furniture out of it and eat the furniture. I desperately wanted a real wooden house that I could decorate myself. Finally at 17yo, I wore them down and they bought me an unfinished wooden house. I stained the floors and the stairs. I primed and painted and wallpapered the interior. Also put in chair rails and window molding. I made the curtains, about half the furniture, and collected the rest. I even made a quilt and matching pillows for the bed. My HS boyfriend’s mom needlepointed an area rug for the living room. I took it to college with me for a homework assignment on principles of design. I still have it. You have inspired me to take it out of the basement and bring it to my office for display. Thank you! Keep up the great videos!
This was fascinating, I'm also obsessed with 'miniatures'. I make myself feel a bit guilty because dollhouses 'are for children', but I never lost my love for them
it should be guilt free! they are so fun and adorable
Why should kids have a monopoly?
we all started off as kids! we've grown and changed since then, but it's sad that adulthood and childhood are so often framed as opposites/two separate states of existence -- I like to think of childhood as foundations of a building (a dollhouse, perhaps) and adulthood as both building upon and going back and strengthening/repairing those foundations!
My aunt is 10 years older than me, and my grandpa built her a beautiful 3 story wooden doll house with working lights. I used to be so jealous and I don't know how many times I asked to take it home. Every plastic dollhouse I had when I was a kid was just so inadequate when I knew that one existed.
I think creating art can be a form of play in itself, and some of these dollhouses feel like they embody that.
I had the 1969 Barbie and Stacy Sleep and Keep case. I both loved it and was very, very conflicted about it. I came from a huge family and the notion that even as an adult I’d have to share a bedroom was deeply depressing. There was a closet area but the teeny hangers either got lost or stolen by my cat, so Barbies clothes had to live in a cedar chest I improvised from a cigar box and anyway, it would be many decades before I was seduced by Marie Kondo into neatly storing clothes as a form of soothing control. However, the beds remained eternally made (another chore I hated), and the colors were spectacular-all the clashing electric colors of the era with exciting touches of black. It did frustrate me that no furniture could be moved around but on the other hand, these women had such exciting lives they had neither a kitchen or a dining room and no time between jobs and dates to need such things. They just flitted in and out of the place to change clothes or collapse for the night in their chaste pink single beds.
this is the best comment i have ever read on youtube
My sister and I used to build our own dollhouses for our Barbies out of a chair and books, and use VHS tapes as beds and sofas. We'd spend a good half-hour building our sets before starting play. Every time they were different, and it's something I look back on very fondly. I did have an actual wooden dollhouse built for me by my grandfather, but it was too short for Barbie, so it was a house for my Beanie Babies.
My grandparents owned a doll house shop from the 1960s until the early 2000s. Most of the customers were adults buying houses and furniture for their hobby. They had electricity and working ceiling fans and things.
I had a tin dollhouse as a kid in the 1960s. I cut myself on it and my dad made me a wood one which I still have at 62. During COVID I reconnected with the miniatures hobby, but I had never really let go of it... I took a kit Victorian dollhouse to college with me to keep it safe from my younger brothers and sisters. There's a huge international dollhouse community on social media, and I love being part of that.
I desperately wanted a dollhouse as a child. But we were in the military, and every couple of years my mom handed me a small cardboard box and anything I wanted to keep had to fit in that one box. I also never had a Barbie, or the 72 color crayon a collection with silver and gold, and a built in sharpener. I’m 70 years old and I’m still sad about that.
Thank you for sharing! It is incredible how those experiences in the first few years stay with us for the rest of our lives.
I had a similar sadness about the toys I didn't have. I'm 62 and two months ago, I bought a doll house kit and I'm having the best time with it- painting, wallpapering, sewing little things for it, making furniture and kitchen cabinets. My husband thinks I'm nuts but I don't care. The world of miniatures is just so FUN!
My brother and I each had that box of crayons on our wish list for Christmas, but my mom bought us each the 48. Big disappointment, although we had many other gifts. We both became ariists anyway. I never bought the crayons, but I did buy the largest markers and watercolour pencil sets available, and those have more than 78 colours each.
Get a dollhouse now! It’s never too late!
@@rainbowgirlism YES! Go buy yourself those things right now
"A Where's Waldo for Protestants." Amazing.
My cousins and I got a gorgeous elaborate wooden dollhouse, tiny doors, many rooms, a fireplace, etc. It didn't come with furniture but it was a masterpiece and made by hand for sure! The size ratio makes sense now, haha. Barbies def didn't fit, but its was great for Kellys! Sadly it burned in a fire along with the dolls...Had some plastic ones too! One that had a dance floor that spins by a handle! And a paper dollhouse that was a book you could open a certain way.
This breaks my heart a little as my dad built me a beautiful doll house, but when my parents eventually downsized and moved the dollhouse must have been donated. Since I grew up in a time before digital cameras I don't think there is even a photo of it. I remember though it had real cedar shingles on the roof, and constructed all the furniture. It have this beautiful huge series of windows along the back centre. It will at least vividly live on in my memories!
The Avon Holy Family lived on the 3rd floor of my kids’ Fisher Orice doll house. Batman did all the cooking and the Beanie Baby Polar Bear drove the Barbie Jeep and the jet. When we had baby sitters it was fun to see what they did with the house after the kiddos went to bed. It was a way I could determine how engaged a sitter was. Tips increased with good imagination. It broke my heart to give away the set and all the inhabitants. Thank you for this amazing piece.
this is so sweet fjgkd; best wishes to The Avon Holy Family, wherever they've ended up
So many memories unlocked! Before watching this, I would have told you that I didn't play with dollhouses, because I had forgotten about the ones my neighbors had that we played with all the time. Thanks for the fun video!
My grandfather made me a beautiful dollhouse when I was a kid. He has some astounding carpentry skills- every roof tile and every wood floor slab was made and placed by hand. Because of these details, it took him a few years to make, and unfortunately by the time it was gifted to me, I was around 12-13 and fading out of playing with dolls. I did play with it a little bit but not much. As an adult, I decided I was going to "restore" it and fully decorate it for display, but I'm having way more fun using it as a home for my childhood Playmobil. 😊 So I've come full circle back to playing 😂
I’m currently going down a mental rabbit hole of all the dollhouses I’ve played with, Barbie, wooden,hand me downs, playmobile. Great video 🏡
I would have never remembered the Bratz foldable house you showed at the end if not for this video! And it opened up sooo many memories for me. Following that up with your reminder to document our own history/doll houses nearly made me tear up! What an important reminder and amazing video.
thank you for watching! had so much fun pouring through so many dollhouses
Our childhoods (if we were lucky) were rich with play and pretend!
I had a Barbie RV my mom got for me at a garage sale when I was a kid and oddly, a Barbie shower that had running water, as well as a foldable one room kind of thing made of cardboard covered in plastic and, outside of the Barbie universe I had a 4 room doll house built from a kit out of balsa wood. I also remember making furniture for my Barbies out of shoe box, fabric scraps, stuffing and a hot glue gun.
Your observations about the sims are interesting, I am currently playing an MMORPG that has player housing and its really cool to see what people create. Some designers go out of their way to build super modern spaces by exploiting glitches in the game to utilize existing furnishings in novel ways to create an illusion. Beyond just doll houses, its fascinating to see how the player base interacts with character customization, "glam" as they call it is very important to a lot of players and it transcends gender. Gaming really creates a space where everyone can virtually "play with dolls" without gender bias.
The paper butter furniture reminds me of my favorite restaurant as a kid: Ruby’s Diner. It was 1950s themed with motorcycles on pedestals, a toy train that ran loops around the restaurant on a track suspended from the ceiling, and kids menus that were printed on paperboard and perforated so they could be folded up into models of 1950s cars
Dollhouses were a big part of my childhood. My parents built me a dollhouse as a child (dad built, mom decorated) and I loved playing with it. On the "document" side my grandparents were into making and collecting miniatures, and had both dollhouse scenes and an incredibly detailed bakery. I distinctly remember the beautiful tiny copper pot set that my grandfather made out of some copper plumbing fittings.
that's so lovely!!
I like the drawer idea under the house. Means you don't have to lie on your stomach to play with the bottom floor. That always used to bug me as i didn't have a table for my dolls house.
I have a dollhouse. There used to be specific stores that sold porcelein dolls and dollhouses. There used to be maybe one in every town, even in the mid-90s. But it really fell out of favor. It is really a lost art. None of the stores I used to visit as a kid exist anymore.
Wait I think I remember this, I saw kits to add electric wiring and appliances to the rooms and it blew my mind. I remember the wallpapers and flooring in particular too. I think i must have been allowed to choose furniture that day we went in, but not dolls strangely enough. I used McDonald's barbies in mine, which happened to be about the right size
It’s totally coming up back in, though!!
My mother-in-law made doll houses. We kept one for our son's daughter (who was born May 2022). Can't wait to get to play in it with her.
what a lovely heirloom to have!
Today I started with the witch house video of yours and haven't stopped watching your videos for 3 hours straight. Why does the algorithm suggest you now? Where have you been in my timeline and feed? Ugh! Immediately subscribed. Thought I'd leave a comment praising your content before I lurk in the shadows watching your content in the years to come.
I'm currently building a dollhouse that is an homage to 1970s design. I highly recommend building a dollhouse. The problem solving and design have been super fun.
My (upper middle class) grandparents had a Victorian doll house. It was huge and incredibly detailed. My (working class) grandfather built a bungalow dollhouse with working lights in the 60s I got to play with both. I now build Lego Modular buildings, which are aimed at adults but are basically doll houses.
I didn't have the barbie dreamhouse, but I did have the camper van. Which is funny because shortly after I grew out of dolls we lived on a converted bus for the rest of my childhood. So it did prepare me for life, but not in a way anyone was expecting! I also had the polly pocket clock where they lived in the top but sadly that never became relevant in my life. So far anyway, we live in hope.
i’m so glad i found this channel!
my grandpa was a carpenter/tinkerer and he built my aunt a SUPER elaborate dollhouse with tons of intricate furniture, working lights, and just SO many little details, the walls opened like doors on either side and it was HUGE- he started building one for my mom, but as is the curse of the younger sibling, never got around to finishing it
My niece still plays with doll houses. She has the Calico Critters doll houses
I had a little mermaid playset as a toddler that I have been unable to find on the internet! It was probably 12”x12”, had different partitions supposed to represent different scenes from the movie, and little plastic figurines of the characters. I think it was probably released 98/99 by Mattel
"RIP to the Amateur UA-camr." (9:05 The pause button is my friend). I have been binge-watching you all day. I love your mix of architecture, history, and humour! 🙂
I'm so glad I found this video! I had a Playmobil Victorian dollhouse for ten years but it was such a mess by the time we moved across the country that my parents wouldn't let me pack it. I had boxes and boxes of Playmobil furniture but also other kinds of miniatures, and I also used to take the dolls' hair off and make hair out of polymer clay. It was everywhere.
The algorithm blessed me today, suggesting one of your videos - and I have to say, that was a good 5 hours ago, and now I am like 10 videos in.
Our ( myself ( now 73!), younger sister and step sister) built our doll house all over the bedroom floor and had to be careful walking! One of my favorite items was the blue plastic shaker bit from Morton's Salt ( two layers the perforated one and the cover part) that I used as a waffle maker!
Subscribed!
Its so funny this came out when it did because I was just finishing up a spinning wheel of different Barbie's so I could decorate a house in the Sims because i wanted to feel alive again (I also have a migraine and nothing better to do). I always loved the doll house more than actual dolls as a kid. I would spend most of my time making sure my Playskool doll house was just so before even thinking about my dolls. Some of that could have been because my Barbies couldn't fit in it but even when I got to see my cousins whose house was a barbie / fashion doll dream land I would still spend hours on which ever doll house I was given.
Stettheimer dollhouse has a working elevator! Also, I'm a year late, but my grandfather was a master woodworker and a historic architecture enthusiast who started building a dollhouse for my aunt in the seventies based on a house in Colonial Williamsburg. He didn't finish it, and then tried it again for my older cousin, but I was the lucky duck who finally got to work on making it with him and inherited it about forty years after the shell was initially built. It has six-over-six double hung windows with panes made of thin sheets of mica. He was also a geology expert. Legend.
Me and my sisters went to minature museum in Colorado and it's so fun to see the western and native American influences in these houses down to pottery and silversmithing
You’re channel is grossly under subbed. Keep up the great work❤
Fascinating video! The Strong National Museum (in Rochester, NY) has an entire section dedicated to old doll houses. It’s an incredible document! And The Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago has a 1920s fairy tale castle that is 9x9 feet and 12 feet tall. Both are worth visiting! 😊
until watching this, I hadn't thought of the topic for around a half century, but it reminded me of my own experience being inspired by the craft of miniatures, that goes beyond doll houses, for example: railroad sets. miniatures are fascinating in the skill needed to make tiny details by hand and to maintain proper scaling across so many different objects so that they may be combined realistically. Thinking back on it, I missed the opportunity to pursue that kind of craft, instead being drawn to the new-thing at the time, 8 bit computing and raster-scan graphics compatible with tube televisions. I would rather had spent my time developing skills at making miniatures, it would have been much more rewarding.
Visited a doll and doll house / miniatures musuem this past Speing in Taipei- it was a lot cooler than I expected!
I'm 59. Back when they started to see that those foldable, portable Barbie houses would be a lucrative item, iI had one of the first suitcase-type ones. It was made of that lightly padded vinyl they used for lots of things back in the early 70s. This was before the totally pink times, so mine had lots of bright colors. It folded up to about 16"×16"×3", if I remember rightly, and had a handle for easy transport. Also, all the furiture was built into the walls, that folded out like a pop-up book. There was even a little, round sort of metallic decal as a mirror on the wall over the "vanity". It was only 2 rooms, because just how many rooms of Barbie scale can you get in that small of a space.
I loved that house and played it literally to death. The vinyl walls and furniture started to dry out and break down after a while, making the furniture parts tear off. I played with it anyway, right up until I started my horse phase and forgot about Barbie.
I also had a Barbie airplane, which was a lot like the camper vans and plastic houses. I was never that interested in it, though. I had never been on a plane back then, so I had no idea how Barbie and her friendss would act in one.
All the little, plastic dollhouse furniture and dinnerware that came with the plane got lost or broken pretty quickly, partly because they were great for being crushed and broken by my brother with his Barbie-sized G.I.Joes. during thier "missions".
Oh, how I wish I had some of his larger-sized Joes now. They are very, very rare now, especially the ones that had flocked hair and beards, before the hair began being molded on to the action figure's head, like my brother had. (Call them dolls and get a punch in the stomach from their "commander".)
I haven’t even watched a minute and I already came here to say that everyone need to go to the Toys and Miniatures museum in KC! So many amazing dollhouses 😍
that sounds like such an amazing place!
Also the great American dollhouse museum in Danville, kentucky!
Oh hey, I live in KC! That museum is so cool!
@@sarahhornung3721 right?! I’ve taken friends there and they’re always skeptical until they step inside. Then it’s like OMG this is incredible!
Oh my goodness, what a fun video! I love dolls and this was a fascinating history of their houses (and our houses).
I've never seen a dollhouse like the one I grew up with. It was meticulous and crafted in delicate wood. Thanks for encouraging loading it up online. If I ever come across the photos of it I will.
We have a wooden dollhouse that's absolutely massive and has working lights and light switches. It has big stairs and an outdoor space too. My mum and uncle played with it when they were kids and so did I. And now I have it and our future child will play with it too.
But, I also had a Barbie dollhouse. Well, Shelly's house, actually. I remember being very disappointed when I couldn't get the rug sticker on straight. It also came with a swing and a slide, I believe.
OMG… Your humor is so dry I love it. I keep absorbing all of your videos since I found you yesterday.
Adore this video! I love how you manage to be concise and detailed! You give me just enough fun historical detail and specifics, without any irrelevant/ boring historical backstory. So cool, hearing about all these historical doll houses. I love your analysis about the histography of doll houses, and the impact of class. The document/play scale is such a good way of putting it. And I love your humour
I am so grateful to have you watching! This one was a big project, but really fun!
My mum got a wooden shell, and then worked with me to decorate it and fill the house. A mix if her dollshouse furnitute, new stuff that I saved up and things we made. My brother had his own 'extra attatchment' room because he wanted to join in. I also made a set of treehouses for Robinhood.
Awesome video! My favorite dollhouse growing up was the Playmobil Victorian dollhouse, and I still have and cherish it. I'm house hunting, mentally planning out what my home office/library will look like, and I plan to put that dollhouse on full display when I have the space for it and eventually pass it on to my kids, if I ever have any. Same goes for my American Girl dolls. I had Samantha growing up and got Kirsten when I was older. I had Samantha's big picture book "dollhouse," if you can call it that, but I think owning the trunks are a key part of feeling like you have a dollhouse for the AG girls. To this day I love collecting AG items, especially from the Pleasant Company days. There was so much care, attention, and heart in the details back in the early days of the company and brand
I had a little old 4 room dollhouse (1960s?) that had functional LED porcelain lamps as a kid. Loved that thing. It disappeared like many of my other toys when I stopped using them for a few years to make room in the house. Miss that thing now.
Been waiting for your channel to appear forever. When I was a kid my local library got a copy of “The Ultimate Dollhouse Book” by Faith Eaton forward by Flora Gill Jacobs. It was a major for me!! I came back to the library as a teenager and I saw the book on the sale rack. They saw inside that I was the only person who ever took it out and gave it to me. Also wanted to note that Stromer House from 1639 also has a walker included in its contents safety reigns.
kendra's content NEVER misses!!!!!
I’m 67, still have my dollhouse and my petite princess furniture. I redecorated my house a few years ago and plan to do so again. I love miniatures and making tiny food etc. still have my 1965 Barbie, enjoyed making clothes for it, but enjoyed my dollhouse more. I do like moving the furniture about just as I do my home furniture. Tiny is so much easier to move about.
I wish stage productions still made paper versions. That's such a neat idea.
The replicas of the ones Kendra mentioned are still available. I have also seen one for a dolls' house made recently on one of the dolls house channels- I hope I have it correct: worlds of wonder- from Australia- lovely channel to check out.
I was never big on dolls growing up but I always had little dinosaurs and animal figurines, and I remember making houses for them out of milk crates stacked up in my closet. I loved finding small items to use in the houses and arranging them to look like a comfy home. I'd spend hours in there decorating and playing their lives out.
I really enjoyed this. The animals living below is a German thing also. There is a homesteader on UA-cam who has a house where all of his hand animals are on the first floor. It is very interesting to see how they had the one central fireplace and the rooms with all of the food essentials. Martin Luther hung on the wall of the nursery. That’s hilarious.
thats so cool about the animals on the first floor. time for some further research
The printed tin houses of the 60’s with their plastic furniture, Flatsies in their framed rooms, Barbie vinyl carriers with drawers & hangers & the homemade clothes. What marvelous, simple memories. Would love to have them all back! 😂
Thanks for featuring my dollhouse - the Barbie Grand Hotel! I agree, it WAS sick! You have such an underrated channel! 😁
the sickest, lol!
Your dry humor is such a delight in these historical recaps
I had a Barbie dollhouse that folded into a rolling suitcase! It was technically more of a doll apartment, I guess. The bed folded down from the wall and was also over the bathtub and there were real dressers. It was so cool
Ever, since I was a young kid, I had always dreamed of owning a doll house, especially electrified, so that I could watch as a Queen Anne three story mansion can come to life. In my grasp.
Seeing the kids at hobby shops of the unpainted models was always such a delight, as I got older, and had less space, I realize that I am less enamored with the inside, but more with the outside, which might be one of the reasons why I started building model for sides in order to slake my interest in some thing without it, taking up much room because it’s practically flat
Found this channel today and have already watched like 5 videos. This is such a great video. It also made me reflect on the gendered play my family engaged in. As three siblings within 5 years of eachother we played a ton together and one of our favorites was “Junior town” named after my brother’s beloved stuffed animal and made of pieces of cardboard boxes stacked like tenaments in a shared closet. As we grew up my sister got her doll house and us boys got rescue heroes and our play time became intensely gendered from then on. The thing is? My brother and I were also just playing with dolls and dollhouses ours were just shaped like firefighters and police stations.
I didn't know I need this video but now i know I need to make a pilgrimage to multiple doll house museums now
You brought up so many memories for me, of playing in a fisher price dollhouse that had a corresponding computer game?? And having a mini miniature castle (the whole thing was like 10 inches tall but opened up with a ballroom inside and 2 cm tall figures). And then a couple years later playing with my little sister who got that folding barbie house
I really enjoyed this! Are you familiar with illustrator Tasha Tudor's dollhouse? When she held a wedding for two of her dolls (in the 1950s, I think), it was featured in Life Magazine, and there's a book all about her and the dollhouse. Tudor was so eccentric and I'm kind of obsessed with her.
That is a beauty! And the scale is large, so you can really enjoy all the details. I love it.
Your channel is so underrated! I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to research, document, and showcase the history of dollhouses! You are so thorough and passionate, and I love your sense of humor and personality! I also loved all your Gilmore Girls videos! ❤🎉😊
When I was a child I had a metal doll house. The walls were pre-printed with wall paper or plain colours . When we moved across Canada, I don't remember seeing it ever again.
Kendra you are becoming my favorite channel real quick. I was always obsessed with dolls and dollhouses. The first one I made with my mom out of shoe boxes. It had contact paper with a wooden print as the flooring and floral paper on the walls. Later on I had Barbies of course, and also MyScene dolls, but my absolute favorite were the Lego Scala Dolls. I got a cardboard dollhouse from IKEA for them, it was like 4 floors high and seemed huge as a child. I only stopped playing with dolls in middle school. I have also been playing Sims since age 7 so creating stories with little people has been my passion the majority of my life. If I ever end up having disposable income I I hope to one day be able to make victorian looking dollhouses.
I had a wooden 2 story doll house that I played with my 101 dalmatian playsets with. I didn't have any furniture so it fit. Later on I got the radio Barbie house that I used with my Barbie and Bratz dolls. It was usually just the kitchen area and I set up a more elaborate "house" on my floor in my bedroom. I'm also an avid Sims player. Starting with Sims 1.
For my daughter's 2nd birthday we got her the Little People Barbie Dream house. She was super into playing with her little people and it was a perfect fit. It's a nice large doll house, bigger than the regular little people one. She plays with it every day.
Awesome video and great suggestion to document our dollhouses past and present. I was a big fan of polly pockets as a kid, and I really wish I still had them. Luckily I still have several MyScene and Calico Critter furniture sets
I had the 1993 Playskool Victorian dollhouse in pink and white. I had like 95% of the props and accessories for it, that continued to be sold well thru 1998, as I would get more pieces for Easter and Xmas and my birthdays. I didn't have the stable with the horse though, and I didn't have the boy/brother figurine, and I didn't have alternate family #2. But I loved it. I was forced to get rid of it in 2002, I wish I hadn't. I wish I'd kept it. I would still be playing with it. I miss it so much!
I love this video so much! It made me remember my dolls house. One of the few home videos we have of the early 00's includes me getting it for christmas! I don't know what happened to it, but I remember it was covered in crayon scribbles because I wanted to "redecorate" and there was an old mint tin filled with salt and pepper for the doll's dinner.
Please make a video showing houses that you have made in the Sims!
loved this thanks.
500 years and not a single mention of the most important dollhouse of my childhood: the one of that episode of "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" where the girl slowly turns INTO a doll!
I had that tin dollhouse as a child!! It was a gift to me from my elderly babysitter. It had been here when she was a child!!! I would give anything to still have that house for posterity!!! I loved that thing sooooo much!!!
I also made a wooden replica of the house we lived in for my oldest daughter when she was a child and saved my Pennie’s to buy her a Barbie Dream House a few years later!! I bought my youngest daughter a Madeline Doll House when she was about 7!!! Doll houses have always been a beautiful part of my memories and those I made for my girls. 💜💜💜
Love your subtle humor!
This is my new favourite channel! I remember loving a 3ft dollhouse my uncle made for me and made my dad paint all pink. I think my youngest cousin has it now.
I had the Barbie Swan Lake Castle and a Polly Pocket water park that looked like the one in the games.
I remember my aunt had this large wooden doll house that had nothing in it, it had ten rooms but no flooring or wallpaper. I remember wanting to play with it but my aunt really didn't like us being upstairs for long so I never got to, but I still think about it.
My mom bought some fairy garden stuff and we were making a village together, but that was short lived.
I watch people make all sorts of doll houses most of which obviously aren't for play and I just promise myself I'll have the time and the money some day.
I'm wondering how Lego falls in line with the idea of a doll house. The figures are basically dolls, and there were so many sets for medieval, modern structures. I'm 37 and still have all my original sets from the 90's, many of which were castle structures that could be opened like those doll houses.
(Love this vid, great job)
What drives me insane about dolls these last 15ish years, especially barbie, are peoppe freaking out that she's unrealistic, that we're "meant" to be like her in the sense of *looking* like her. Karen, I *know* that I'm not gonna grow up looking like barbie because I was taught that we're all different and grow differently. I *know* that I'm not gonna look like barbie and frankly I don't want to because I don't want to be limited to *only* convertables because I'm so tall my head sticks over the windshield. My parents got very nervous when I said I wanted to be like barbie when I grew up and I didn't understand their very heavy silent pause before asking "...why?" I proceeded to list off every positive thing about her from her various career choices to her intelligence, her large group of friends and small but close family, all her pets and adventures...
"She's pretty, too..." I remember saying hesitantly as an after thought, "and I hope to be pretty and beautiful like her, too, but I know my body probably won't grow to match hers because even if she was real, we'd still be different people and people grow differently."
after being recommended your video, about the AD tours, from a tiktok, I have been watching your videos and I love them sm. I've found my new favorite niche of content thanks to you
Hi there,
I love your channel!
The Christmas I was 10, 1973, I received a house for my Dawn dolls.
I think it was my favorite present ever, even now 51 years later!
The house was made of orange and yellow plastic and filled with orange and yellow furniture 💛 🧡!
It was glorious. I wish I still had my Dawn dolls and their groovy 🏠 house!
My sister was a huuuge fan of Friends and my favorite episode was the one with the dollhouse: Monica's inherited dollhouse was very much a document and Phoebe's was a whimsy and playful and reminiscent of the shoebox dollhouses I would make for my dolls.
I love miniatures! And niche historical deep dives!
i got my master’s in public history and for one of my classes, i had to make an online museum exhibit and i did it on dollhouses throughout the centuries!! i wish i had included some of the examples you talked about. loved this video 😊