New Doors & Windows...

Many of my dollhouses come to me without doors and windows.  Understandably, they're the easiest things to become loose and get lost over the years.  Luckily, sometimes I can fashion replacements that are almost as good as the originals!

 

In the case of this Rich Tudor house, I searched online and found a similar house.  I created a door from masonite that closely matches!

 

Unfortunately, I had a harder time finding hinges like the originals, so these will have to do for now.

 

 

I made this door for a Keystone house.  The paint color is off a touch, but I haven't gotten around to repainting it yet. 

 

 

Windows are another story.  As you can see in the Keystone house above, some windows are actual metal pieces inserted into a frame.   I haven't found a way of duplicating those yet.  But luckily, many windows are just pieces of acetate glued inside the windowframes.

 

The above ad is out of Diane Zillner's American Dollhouses and Furniture from the 20th Century.  It is the only place I've been able to find a picture of my Rich Tudor house (and one of the windows is still slightly different than mine). 

 

I scrutinized the photo and was able to replicate the windows in my house!  I used a white paint pen on acetate and attached them inside the house using tacky wax.  It now looks so much better than it did when I got it!  (look back at the first photo from the post to see it without the windows and door)

 

I was also able to do the same thing with my "new" Rich house that I got for Christmas.  Again, the above photo was in Diane Zillner's book, so I duplicated the windows in my house.

 

This time I just used a black Sharpie on acetate.

 

I find it odd that my house has a brick ledge below the large window, whereas the book shows a yellow ledge.  Mine also has a functioning front door and the other doesn't.  It seems like there were so many variations in these old houses.  Like I mentioned with the Tudor house, one of the windows on my house varies slightly from the house in the advertisement.  It adds a lot of intrigue when you're trying to identify them, as there almost seem to be no two that are exactly alike!!

 

I'm still working on furnishing all these guys.  But I'm fairly close to finished on a couple of them, so I'll make sure to post tours once I reach that point!