This is Keystone of Boston's largest dollhouse in their "Put-A-Way" series.  Rooms on either side pivot/fold into adjoining rooms  to give a smaller footprint in a child's room. The extra rooms house a kitchen and a small garage  with a patio on the front side of the house. I found this sweet little Strombecker kitchen table and chair set on Ebay  and liked the way the seller had folded the corners of the tablecloth  and also made seat pads for the chairs.  The seller had listed all of the kitchen appliances along with the table set.  It was a ..read more

  The Vlags put their Rich Toys house up for sale  before moving on up to the Westside... (of the dollhouse village....OK one of the 3 dollhouse villages in my house.)   You can read about the Vlags Rich Toys home  here. Here is Roberta Vlag taking one last thing  from their home before the movers arrive.  She is excited about her new home  and wants to show it to you. This is Keystone of Boston's single "Put-A-Way" dollhouse. One room pivots into the base of the house,  plus the roof is removable for easier play.  This do ..read more

In 1949 Keystone of Boston came up with a new innovation in dollhouses, making three models of their "Put-A-Way" dollhouses. Catagorized as Put-A-Way because of the ability to pivot or fold wings/rooms of the dollhouse inside adjoining rooms, allowing for a smaller "footprint" in a child's room. This is the smaller of the three Put-A-Ways made in 1949. Meet Horace and Gertrude Ideal  and their twins Freddie and Flossie.  This small 5 room Keystone of Boston house is their home. They have a combination living and dining room  with a partial wall giving the ..read more

 Was the chamber pot the original indoor "plumbing"? With an introduction on chamber pots  by Rhu McBee, the newest book by Patty Cooper is all about dollhouse bathrooms.  From the "almost lovely" wooden bath pieces produced in Germany around 1900, to their metal bathroom pieces and bath roomboxes in the 1920s, collectors of dollhouses from this time period have a large variety of bathrooms to choose from.  Not to be left behind, America and the UK  jumped right in with bath pieces made of metal, wood and plaster. We find them in the same colors that were pop ..read more

Say hello to the Jurgensons.... Jerry, Janice and their little daughter Jezebel. This is their home, a two story, five room house with side chimney and attached kitchen. It was manufactured by Keystone of Boston  and appeared in their catalog of 1938-39.  Jerry and Janice saw it, liked it and ordered it immediately. Janice insisted I wallpaper every room,  not my favorite thing to do.          Here we find Jerry and Janice sitting quietly in the living room. Pick one: 1) not on speaking terms. 2) waiting for the other one to fix dinner ..read more

  This dollhouse was produced  in 1934, the last year of production for the A. Schoenhut Company of Philadelphia, Pennsalvania. It has suffered some water damage, is missing the chimney, and was missing the door and two windows when it arrived. I will get around to making a chimney one day. I made the door....and then installed it the wrong way, that's why the door knob is on the right side. I "borrowed" two windows from the side of another small Schoenhut, because in my Dollhouse Village, having front windows is more important than having side windows! This illustration is ..read more

Midget Manor is a good descriptive name for this little tin dollhouse manufactured by Ohio Art between 1949-1951, as it measures only 6" wide, 2" deep and 5" tall.  It sits on a base 8¼" by 3", lithographed as a yard and side patio. Theodore and Maxine Bumfielder live on the west side in their little tin house. Their house is well furnished with the plastic furniture  that came with it when they bought it.  Theodore is waiting in the kitchen for Maxine to fix his breakfast. He is dressed for work and has his briefcase and umbrella at the ready ....and his hat on ..read more

Chunky wood dollhouse furniture, sold mostly in dimestores during the 1940s, is highly collectable.  If you, like me, are curious about who made these pieces in your collection, this new book by Patty Cooper will help you identify them.  This is a companion book to Patty's Nancy Forbes and Donna Lee Dollhouse Furniture  and covers the smaller, lesser known companies that sold the inexpensive wood dollhouse furniture at the dimestores beloved by children of that era.  You are probably familiar with Wanner, often referred to as Grand Rapids,  and can usually identif ..read more

* indicates there is more information at the end of the post This is the Joneses house, a 1936 Rich Toys Tudor.  But don't tell the Joneses it's a dollhouse,  because they think it's a real house. *1                And these are the Joneses.... Gerald, Marilyn, Teddy (Theodore), and Butch (Gerald, Jr).  And of course the dog, Lester (Lestershire).   They are Caco dolls from Germany. *2 This is the back of the Joneses house, with living room,  kitchen and dining room on the first floor and tw ..read more

  This is Marion's childhood dollhouse, built with love by her father, and gifted to her for Christmas when she was about 8. It was her favorite toy and she played with it constantly. Marion has decided that it is time for some other little girl, or "big" girl, to be able to love and enjoy it like she has over the years.  It is solidly built of wood and on the large size....45" wide, 28" high and 18" deep. To me, it has a European influence similar to the dollhouses built in Germany in the late 1940s and early 50s. Marion shared that her father was born and grew up in Germany, so ..read more