The
Enchanted
Miniature
Shoppe
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Dollhouses by Majestic Mansions coming soon |
Dollhouses by Maxine coming soon |
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Lee's Fine Furniture New items added |
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About Me I enjoyed miniatures so much that as the internet shopping craze began I decided to open an internet site. I spent months researching and learning how to create a website. I wanted a site that would be easy to use for everyone. At the time I started, there were no shopping carts available. Will I have a shopping cart in the future? The cost of having one is certainly not a problem. The time to add a shopping cart is. Also, as I am nearing retirement age I am not sure how long I will keep the site online as my husband and I have other hobbies and interests. We love to travel and have taken lots of cruises to the Caribbean and also a wonderful cruise to Italy and Greece and Turkey. Cruising is our favorite way to travel and during the winter months in Utah we love to visit the warmth of the Caribbean. During the time we take trips, I close the website. Also, since hubby has retired he has also has a new and expensive hobby (why are hobbies so expensive?) He bought a "Classic Car" a 1969 Cord Convertible and we keep busy with car shows and club meetings. I have created a website for our club if you are interested visit www.inlandroadsters.com. I also have a 1966 Thunderbird Convertible. This last year my husband re-built both engines and added lots of power and chrome stuff. We didn't get to attend too many car shows because of that. I hope to keep the miniature shop going for a few more years as I love miniatures and the people I meet are such lovely people! I will continue to do add new items whenever I find something interesting that I think you may like. I hope you will continue browse through my shop and continue to order. Here I am. This rest of this stuff is really pretty dull, skip down to the dollhouse pictures. As I remember (which was a long long time ago) I seem to have had a natural artistic ability. I recall that it started when I found out that my boyfriend had a class whose teacher would let you out without a hall pass. This class was Art. So I signed up for the class even though I had no artistic talent that I knew of. In my Senior year I ended up with 5 out of 7 classes in Art and had an A average even though I was doing quite poorly in English and American History. (Thankfully, college later on in life improved those abilities and I found out that if I studied long tedious hours and did my homework I would get good grades too!). Private oil painting lessons and commercial art lessons followed High School, but it was not quite what I was looking for in the way of a career (much to the annoyance of my instructor). So I strayed in the world until some years later I decided I had better go back to school if I wanted to survive and support myself and my daughter. I began evening classes and graduated with a Bachelor's in Science in Business and an Associates in Applied Science in Accounting plus a lot of credits I didn't even need. Wow, thirteen years of night school while working and raising a daughter alone was a real struggle! I did meet my husband during this time and he was very supportive of anything I did. Well, that's all the personal life I plan on revealing. So now for the rest of the story! I built my first doll house twelve years ago. It was the Pierce by Greenleaf and had everything I would love to have had in a real Victorian home. I purchased the kit for $150 and spent my entire two week Christmas vacation constructing the exterior. More time was spent later applying stucco, painting, and adding shingles. These are the facts on building doll houses....everything you add costs extra. The house needed lights so I hired a cheap electrician (hubby) to wire it for me. I do that myself now. I spent my hard earned money for the electrical tape, transformer, wall paper and light fixtures. WOW! $35 for a mini chandelier blew me away (and now I have one on my website for over $200)! Then came the furnishings. Some we put together ourselves, and some we bought. My hobby turned out to be quite expensive as without labor I have probably spent in the range of $3,000 to $4,000 for a miniature house. Of course now that I have a miniature store, it has turned out to be a bigger investment than I would ever have thought. But, I enjoy my work and I enjoy meeting and talking with new customers (some of which have turned out to be great friends). So.....how many hours did I put in on this dollhouse? Hundreds! How much money did I spend on this dollhouse? Lots! How much satisfaction and pleasure do we get (yes, hubby loves it also) on this dollhouse? TONS! The hours and money have been worth it! I spend hours looking at my magnificent Victorian Houses which not only delights me, but also my friends, family and acquaintances. The houses I build go to adults, children and grandchildren and will be enjoyed through many generations, as will yours. YOU WILL GET THAT SAME DELIGHT! Remember to be selective when buying! You don't need to get everything at once, it took me some time before I had everything I wanted. And, I am still looking! And ask plenty of questions to save yourself from making mistakes! Here are some pictures of rooms-in-progress on a doll house I am restoring. The house was built in 1960 but not completed on the outside or inside. I have sided the outside in a pale shade of pink with highlights on the windows and verandas of lavender, mint green and cream. The house has nine good size rooms on three floors. I put things in my rooms even though I'm not finished as I need to get a feel for how they are going to look (besides, I can't wait to get furniture in them). The bathroom has a pink marble tile floor (inexpensive plastic from Miniature House) and I cut a piece of wood to make a matching pedestal for the bathtub. The grand entrance is coming along. I used green wallpaper on the ceiling with a Unique Miniatures ceiling trim. Again, the floor is Miniature House plastic marble flooring. I used a green sheet and white sheet and cut out the squares, then placed the tiles on a piece of poster board the size of the floor and glued each in place. This is an inexpensive way to get an unusual looking floor. The lilac bedroom is nearly complete and again I used Unique Miniatures trims for accents around the lilac walls. The carpet is two pieces of Famous Floor carpet (a very inexpensive brand) glued on poster board. I glue all my floors on poster board and then glue it to the actual floor when I am complete. This way I get an exact fit and if I have a wiring problem I can get to it easier. I love the wallpaper in the bedroom and also in the living room. I used a combination of wallpapers by MiniGraphics in the living room. The house is far from being completed as you can see. But I'm having fun with this doll house as it is quite unique and the style of the rooms very challenging. Click on the pictures for larger view
Below is a home that is not complete. I built it for someone who later decided to sell all her miniatures. She offered to sell the house to me and I bought it. Unfortunately it would not go through the door into my workshop so it now sits on a coffee table in the formal living room against the wall, and my antique gramophone serves as a coffee table in front of the couch. The house measures about 3 1/2' long, 2' tall, and 31" wide. I plan to change the wallpaper as it is all done in a Christmas theme which is what the owner wanted. This house is called the "Lace House" and is a replica of a Gothic House located in Black Hawk, Colorado. The original house was built in 1863 by Lucien K. Smith and is currently on the Historic Register.
This "Beacon Hill" I did for a customer in 2006. Click on the picture for a better view. I also donate a dollhouse each year to a worthwhile Charity. One day I will develop those pictures and post them also. My first house I built is the Pierce. The pictures are below. I WISH YOU THE BEST OF LUCK IN YOUR DOLL HOUSE PROJECT! |
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Prices are subject to change due to price increases or data input error. |
