People have asked to see pictures of my doll room in the new house. The pictures have been delayed because of the stupid computer crash. I wasn't even bothering to take pictures for a while, but now that I'm using PicMonkey I'm back in the photo business.
The doll room is far from finished, but there are no longer boxes or large plastic containers on the floor. My friend Sherelyn came one day and helped me unpack some of the stuff. A lot of my little doll rooms aren't completely set up and the shelves sometimes have things just stuffed in there out of the way, but one of these days I'll get it done. A lot of the dolls aren't dressed and are patiently waiting for some attention. Please excuse their appearance.
When this house was built back in the 1980's there were two living areas...a living room and a den. This was the living room which the previous owners used as an office. The lady that lived here told me that her husband built all the shelves. When I first saw this room I knew it would be my doll room!
With that all said...here are some pictures.
Welcome to the doll room!
The Chatty Cathys are front and center. I don't have them all set up yet and their little area needs some more work. My brother-in-law worked for American Greetings years ago and these were some cases taken out of a store. The card racks would have been on top. This is two of them back to back. The drawers are great for storage.
Charmin Chatty is there too. Normally, one of the cats would be sleeping in Chatty's bed. (It's become Roscoe's favorite place to sleep.)
I call these two my "make believe grandkids." They're sitting in Sunday School chairs. I found these one year at the Round Top Antique Show. They're just like the ones we used to sit in at Sunday School back in the 1950's.
I keep some dolls that are special to me in this doll case. My favorite doll is the Vogue Ginny Doll and there are some vintage reproduction Ginny Dolls on the top shelf.
This case hold my collection of AA Ginny Dolls. All are reproductions except for the 1954 AA Ginny that my friend Karen left to me. She is on the bottom shelf in the center. I love the AA dolls. I think the clothes look so much better on them.
I have two of these cabinets that I bought for $50 each at Home Depot on clearance some years back. The shelves are nice and deep and I use them to set up rooms and scenes. I use the bottom shelves for storage.
They have doors I can close to keep cats out! I really need to get all the dolls organized and the rooms set up right. I usually keep my vintage Ginnys in these two cabinets so they're not exposed to the light.
I keep props stored on top of the cabinets. I've had an idea for a Christmas pageant scene ever since I bought the church at a store that was going out of business. It's really cute with little Ginny size pews and hymnals. A doll friend gave me the school bus. It's great for when Ginny goes back to school in September. The dolls also have a blue Mustang. (I used to have one the same color.)
On the built in shelves I have dolls and doll books. I also have some of the kids' childhood books and Fisher Price toys. Also, photos and some of my childhood books. This shelf has some of my Mickey Mouse Club themed dolls.
I've tried to combine my two loves in one...dolls and NFL football. (I know it's a strange combination.) Yes, Ginny is a Texans football fan too! That's actually one of the boy dolls that Vogue makes wearing a football uniform that I made. The helmet was an antenna ball that one of the fast food places gave out the first year the Texans came into being. I pulled out the ball and the helmet fit on the doll's head. It's a flexible plastic. The ones they now sell at the stadium are a hard plastic and won't go on the doll.
This is the Brownie/Girl Scout shelf. They all belong to troop 33. That was my childhood troop number. I bought all the uniforms on eBay, added the troop number, and made most of the hats.
I wanted to have Cub Scouts too, so Carla (she sells on eBay) made the shirts and shorts and I added the Cub Scout patches, scarves, and hats. She also sewed the Den Mother's skirt and blouse.
In this corner I have some more doll rooms. These are modular shelves that were sold at Target at one time. I was so disappointed when they were discontinued before I had all that I wanted. They're nice and deep...deeper than book shelves. I had Plexiglas cut to size and it's attached to each shelf with Velcro to keep cats and dust out. I haven't finished setting all these rooms up either. That big thing to the left is a cat climbing tree. I share the doll room with cats! They love watching lizards out the window.
Now you've seen my happy place. This is where I go to relieve some of the stress in my life. I can't help but smile when I walk into this room. Now I have a place where all my dolls can be together. Before they were spread out around the house. In fact, it wasn't until we were moving over here that I finally realized how much doll stuff I owned. My husband used to say, "Betty, you've got an awful lot of stuff." He was right!
