The Schoenhut Twins

 Last year, I was perusing Ebay (as I'm known to do quite frequently!), and I came across this Schoenhut dollhouse for only $35 Buy It Now.  Knowing this was a pretty good price for this house, I snatched it up, and waited anxiously for its arrival.

 

 I hadn't ever seen a Schoenhut house in person, and I was pleased once it arrived.  While it was a bit banged up, the details are all so sweet- the carving around the door, the shutters and windows, the stairs and archways...

 

 Here you can see the state of the roof though.  It's pressed cardboard, and very shabby at this point!

 

 And the house came with some lovely interior decorating as well!

 

 

 

Then, fast forward to last week, while I was perusing my local thrift store (as I've also been known to do quite frequently!), and I came upon this sitting there for only $10:

 

 Basically, the exact same dollhouse, minus the windows and door!

 

Also with a pretty shabby roof and some lovely interior decorations!

 

 

 

Soooo, I got to work! 

 

 The thrift store house's roof was actually in much better condition than the Ebay house's.  It still had a nice sheen to it, and much less roughness around the edges.  So, since the Ebay house was in better original condition overall, I decided to switch the roofs.  I made repairs as well as I could, and performed a switch-a-roo!

 

 I also repaired the broken windows and added some lovely window boxes to the front façade.

 

 Out with all the plaid and retro fabrics, and down to just the basics.  I'm not sure if these were the original colors, but they look nice, so I'll keep them.

 

 There are parquet floor papers up in the attic, so I think it was probably meant to be used as extra rooms.  I left the roof unattached on the back so that it could be lifted up.

 

 Here's a better view of the arched doorways.

 

 And the wonderful stairway- so cute!

 

 

Now onto the thrift store house.

 

 It received a complete makeover!  After closer inspection, I could tell that the house had been over-painted at some point, and the roof I had traded from the other house was in pretty poor condition as well.  So I decided that nothing would be lost if I repainted it all.

 

 I chose a cream color for the siding, so that it would contrast with the white trim, and a medium gray for the roof (I've got so many dollhouses with red roofs, so I took advantage of the makeover to do something different!).

 

 Then, to recreate the windows!  Amazingly, I found this ridged molding at Michaels that looked just like shutters!!  So I painted and antiqued it with a mint green, then cut it into shutters.  For the windows, I drew on acetate with a white paint pen, to mimic the windows in the other house.

 

I also needed to recreate a door.  I just cut down a piece of masonite, and added smaller pieces of balsa wood on top, then painted the whole thing and added a nail for a doorknob.  Thankfully, the hinges were still in place from the original door, so I was able to attach it.

 

 Another thing the previous owners had done was to cut into the lower side window and make a doorway (you can see the opening in the original pictures).  So I made another door and some moulding to make it look like a kitchen door.

 

Here you can see the door from the inside- I even added a little step up, since it was sort of "floating" on the wall!

 

 

 Onto the inside.  The original inside was very BLUE, with lots of blue paint and blue carpet and blue wallpaper.  The previous owners were pretty sloppy with their painting, so there was lots of mistakes as well. So I decided to snaz it up and cover some of the flaws with some added wallpapers.  The carpet on the stairs was stuck pretty well, so I'm going to leave that.  And the floor under the carpet upstairs is pretty damaged, so I think I'll leave that, too.

 

 Again, I left the roof unattached so that the attic can be used.  All of the floors in this house are pretty damaged, unfortunately, so I'll have to use rugs to cover them.

 

 Some more shots of the interior.

 

 You may notice some of the same wallpaper as in this other recent dollhouse of mine!

 

 Here are the curtains that were in the house.  I'll probably use a few of them, depending on what furniture ends up in here.

 

 I just had to show you what the rods are made of- Q-Tips!!

 

 And here they are again, side by side.  The Schoenhut twins that aren't really twins anymore!  I guess maybe they're fraternal twins!

 

I will be sure to show you once I start adding furniture and families!