Sunday Porcelain KatMari

[rachelmanija]

I have been unearthing stuff from boxes that have not been opened in ten years (at least), including a number of beloved childhood toys and porcelain animals that I didn't have anywhere to put. So I decided to get a place to put them, in the form of something I have wanted my entire life and never had, which is a dollhouse. (When I was a kid, and also as an adult, I just kept everything on shelves.)

I bought a 1945 tin dollhouse from a local antique shop, along with most of the original (plastic) furniture. When I inquired about the provenance (i.e., how they knew the date), the owner told me that it had been sold to them by an old lady who had hoped to pass it on to her children/grandchildren, but it wasn't the sort of thing they were interested in. So she sold it in the hope that it would find a home with someone who really wanted it. It did. I set it up, and now it's in my bedroom, delighting me every day.

My real cats are not allowed in my bedroom because they are destructive, rampaging chaos machines. All cats in photos are porcelain only.

Here is a sequence of how I put the dollhouse together. It's still a bit in progress, but I also intend to play with it and in fact have been doing so, so these shots also represent a moment in time: they won't all be in the same rooms forever.

I added some more recent furniture I already had, mostly Japanese. (Yes, that is a shogi set.) Almost all the animals are ones I've had for 30-40 years.

I did not have a happy childhood, overall. But it included some happy moments, many of which were spent with these animals. It's nice to have them back again as things I enjoy rather than just things I own.

















For some reason the closeups of the bathroom and kitchen aren't loading. I'll try posting them later as they're two of my favorites.

Comments

[yhlee]

That's so amazing, Rachel!

...I used to want a dollhouse and still love them. I don't really have a place to put one, but I think it's amazing that you got one. :D

(I satisfy myself with BJDs, which are too large for a dollhouse for them to be practical. ^_^ )

[rachelmanija]

True, their natural home probably is shelves.

[frith_in_thorns]

These are all such lovely things! I am very very impressed with your tidying project :) And dollshouses are so great :)

I'm currently stressing about tidying/rabbitproofing the living room and kitchen before next Thursday when Lobelia Sackville-Bunny comes to live here. Like, I have cleared up all the obvious things but then I just stare in panic about the things which have no clear home apart from on the floor around my desk. I have this evening watched a couple of Marie Kondo's episodes (I skipped the first one as I heard the guy in it was awful) and I guess her cheerfullness is making me feel better? Then I refreshed DW and saw your post so you are getting all my Feelings, sorry! :P

[rachelmanija]

Watch Marie Kondo's last episode, the one with the African-American women who just moved in together - it involves pets and has my all-time favorite quote by her, when they ask if she had pets as a child, and she has the most amazing reply. I won't spoil it for you. ;)

Not to stress you more, but rabbits do tend to gnaw so I wouldn't leave anything on the floor that would cause a disaster if it got gnawed on.

PS. GREAT name.

[naomikritzer]

Most of those are the same style of china animal that I collected! (I also had some other varieties, but those tiny siamese cats and the bunnies were made by Hagen Renaker, which was still around (and still making adorable tiny china animals) until just a few years ago.

When I think about stuff I ought to get rid of -- I unpacked my figurines a few years ago and let my younger daughter put them in her room in the shadow box I'd used. This got pulled off the wall by an asshole cat and nearly all of them broke. I've still got the broken figurines, because maybe I can glue them back together? (I broke, and glued, nearly all my figurines at some point as a child.) I lack the fine dexterity to do it anymore, and should just throw them away, because they make me sad when I look at them.

[naomikritzer]

(And then I could buy new ones. They're all over Ebay, and not all that expensive in many cases.)

[rachelmanija]

Yep! Hagen Renaker made so many adorable figurines. I think you can't see it, but I have their baby blue dragon in the high chair in the nursery.

I gave a respectful burial to my broken figurines. By which I mean I said thank you and goodbye, put them in a box nested in paper, and buried it in the dumpster.

I also bought a replacement for a favorite that was broken beyond repair, the little standing brown bunny, off eBay. So that could be a possibility.

[mme_hardy]

They went out of business?!?!??! Sob.

[grayswandir]

My sister and I do miniature photography, so we love all this stuff. :D Actually, the tiny porcelain kitten on the dresser in your third-to-last photo looks almost exactly like one that we've got (we've had it since we were tiny kids, and one of the legs got broken off and lost at some point, but we kept the poor little three-legged kitten anyway). I always love seeing other people's toys. They look great in the dollhouse.

I can also confirm that cats definitely love miniatures. They're great for trampling, breaking, batting under the stove...

[rachelmanija]

The kitten is a Hagen-Renaker, which I just now looked up and discovered is a Southern California family-owned company created in 1945 - the same year as the dollhouse! Anyway, that kitten is part of a series and if you look them up you'll find more of them. A lot of them are on eBay for affordable prices - it looks like it's mostly their horses that were expensive limited editions.

[rushthatspeaks]

I love this! The seals on the outside couch, and that dachshund doesn't play shogi but is considering taking it up, and the spaniel unfortunately is about to play the piano...

[rachelmanija]

I unfortunately couldn't get a good shot of it, but there is a very horrified black cat perched on the edge of the bathtub.

I am having so much fun with this.

[sheron]

AWW this is cute!

I did end up watching a bit of the show on Netflix. I should make my own post about the decluttering.

[rachelmanija]

I would love to hear about your experiences!

[minoanmiss]

I love dollhouses so much, and with your personal items yours is a dollhome.

[rachelmanija]

Yes indeed.

[pameladean]

I love dollhouses. This is awesome. The third photo, when suddenly the house is full of occupants, is just splendid. And you can just see the horrified black cat in that one, if you know to look for it.

P.

[rachelmanija]

Thank you!

I finally managed to get those last two pics, one of which shows what's in the bathtub. I'll post them tomorrow or the next day.

[sartorias]

Oh, what a delight! The first shot reminds me of the doll houses I used to make out of cardboard. The second shot with the furnishings, ditto (though usually by the time I got that far my mom would toss it, having inherited the super powered anti-clutter gene). The third photo, with all the animals shifts it into a delightful zone out of my own experience, and into the fun I get from visiting miniatures at museums. I love the little rooms!

[rachelmanija]

You can come look at it in person some time!

My favorite childhood game to play with the miniatures was "The Tide Is Rising." Best played with a like-minded friend or two. You have them all set up somewhere, you play with them, and then someone yells, "The tide is rising, the tide is rising!" And then you very carefully but as quickly as possible put them all on big flat books or some such, and rush them into another room to escape the rising tide! They are saved! And now they have a new home to explore.

I imagine these animals all fled a rising tide, and made the lucky discovery of this empty but fully furnished lovely new home.

[torachan]

That's such a great idea for displaying stuff like this.

And my mom (born in '49) had a similar doll house when she was little that I used to play with as a kid, too. Single story, but same material/construction.

[rachelmanija]

There's a lot of them, apparently. I think the brand is Marx.

[osprey_archer]

This is so beautiful! I especially love the little porcelain beagle reaching a paw for the piano, and the owl in the bathroom with wings spread.

[rachelmanija]

Thank you! I had a lot of fun arranging them.

[ironed_orchid]

This is such a lovely way to home and display these pieces.

[rachelmanija]

Thank you!

[rilina]

I collected very similar (possibly the same?) porcelain animals as a child. I remember buying them with allowance and birthday money at a local Hallmark store. My collection has lots of kitties, bunnies, and otters.

Somehow they got packed up and shipped to Korea when I lived there as a teen, and there they stayed for the next 20 years while my parents moved between apartments. After my mother passed away last year, my siblings found them while doing house stuff and (with my support) split them up for the nieces and nephew. They are certainly well traveled by this point. I’m glad they’re amusing another generation of kiddos.

[rachelmanija]

Aww, that's great.

Yeah, I bet those were Hagen-Renaker. Did they come standing glued to a square of paper?

[em_h]

Wow, this is beautiful.

[rachelmanija]

Thank you! It's very meditative and pleasant for me to create these little worlds.

[minim_calibre]

That is delightful. (One of the things I want to do, if I finish KonMari-ing my house, is to put together the dollhouse kit I bought...a decade ago? but haven't had space to set up. I love dollhouses so much.)

[rachelmanija]

Oh, you should! Please post pics if you do.

I searched for an already-assembled dollhouse because based on my experience putting together furniture, it ends in tears and Taskrabbit.

[oracne]

I like the seals on the couch!

[chomiji]

The animals look very happy in their new digs!

I especially like the bunny/pig encounter and the sea lions on the sofa.

[applenym]

Oh, what a beautiful dollhouse! And I'm delighted to see that you have exactly the same set of dollhouse furniture that my mother-in-law gifted to my daughter a couple years ago. She played with it when she was a little girl and was quite careful with it, but now the plastic is so old that it's getting brittle. (I'm working on patching up the toilet right now so the lids will still open and close.) But I anthropomorphize everything, so I imagine my mother-in-law's furniture is happy to be seeing some use again rather than being shut up in a box in the attic.

[alchimie]

Your small house of cats is delightful.