My first Dollhouse

My very first dollhouse was a glass cabinet which had its sliding glass door removed. I must have been around seven years old.The glass in the cabinet had to be removed because my younger brother had thrown his shoe at it in a fit of rage and broken the glass!

At around the same time in the early seventies, I saw this tiny little wooden dollhouse living room furniture set painted pink and decorated with a design of flowers. I think it was in 12inch scale, my parents bought it for me.

Even at that early age, I started making miniature objects from scratch, since miniatures were not readily available in Sri Lanka at the time and I guess they are not even available these days. I made my own miniature wall clock with pendulum with a little block of wood in imitation of those hanging on the walls of sri lankan households and chiming at every quarter hour. I also used a bigger block of wood to make a piano with a paper keyboard. I got the urge to make this piano because when I was in Grade 1 at Kandy Convent, we made a cardboard dollhouse for our classroom. One of the girls brought some cute dollhouse furniture for the dollhouse. From what I remember she brought a tiny piano and a cute carpet. How I wished I could be the owner of such lovely miniatures but I could only dream :) I'm guessing that these miniatures were purchased somewhere overseas like England.

My Dad went back to the US to finish his PhD around the same time, so when he came back he brought for me a dancing Dawn doll with long blonde hair and long eyelashes. She wore a short gold color halter dress and red high heeled shoes. She was the right scale for my dollhouse.