Dolls' Houses Past & Present
A website and ezine about dolls' houses: antique, vintage and modern. Plus furniture and accessories.
Zoe H
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Administrator Joined Feb 9 2013
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53 years old North Yorkshire
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About Me
I'm Zoe and I live in North Yorkshire with my husband and two very cute Cavalier King Charles spaniels. I have always been fascinated by dolls' houses but didn't start it as a hobby until my husband bought me a made up but undecorated Edwardian house (Sid Cooke) for a wedding anniversary in 1998. It took me 15 years, working on it in fits and starts, to get to a point where it was almost finished (are they ever really finished?!). It is my pride and joy and I can (and do) spend hours looking at it. It was so good to find this site where I could safely get this guilty confession off my chest! Having 'almost' finished my Edwardian house I had been thinking about what to do next when, in the back of a little antique shop in our local town, I spotted a lovely old dolls' house, in need of some TLC, and I fell in love! I knew nothing about vintage houses but my mum said it was like one she had as a girl so I guess it might be 1930s / 40s and it looked home made rather than manufactured. I have since gleaned from this wonderful site that it is one of a number of houses with similar features by an unknown maker known as a Dolly Mixture. Typically, it would seem, the vintage house hobby fast became an obsession and I bought a Handicrafts 325 (or 'Artistic') house. I had no idea where to start with furnishings for this one but gained massive inspiration from many members of this site. The Handicrafts house was followed by 'a number' of other houses and I am now a fully fledged doll's house addict! I have a blog to record my mini activities and you can find it here: http://trulymadlytiny.blogspot.co.uk/ I have also become hooked on Grecon dolls which now inhabit the majority of my houses and you can follow their lives, loves and exploits both here on this site and on my blog at: Post a CommentOops!The words you entered did not match the given text. Please try again. 36 Comments
Hi Zoe, FYI re Christopher Cole houses - I bought a ?Lakeland Cottage? which had been commissioned by the vendor?s parents. (2001) The carpets that came with it are tapestries done by the wife of theDean of Carlisle Cathedral (at that time or a little later I assume)
Hi Zoe, what a wonderful 'about me'. I love the comment "are they ever finished" lol, I can imagine not, I'm still deciding whether or not to have a bathroom. Like you I've always loved dolls houses but never had one until now. I'm a late starter and have a lot to learn. This site is fantastic. While trying to search for any information about my house I kept ending up here!
Thank you Zoe - this is a fascinating site and am sure I'll get more addicted the more I look into all the articles. It's interesting to see what everyone else is up to!
Hi, Zoe. I'm brand new to this website, so I'm not sure what the best way is to communicate with you. I replied individually to each of your kind comments about the photos of my dolls house, and I sent you a message. Thought I would try this, too. I'm happy to talk more about the house, furnishings and dolls, whenever you have the time.
By the way, we seem to have a lot in common. Cavalier King Charles spaniels are my favorite dog (alas, my cats won't let me bring a dog into the house.) I also spend hours looking at my dolls house. And we both use terms like obsession and addiction to describe our collecting.
Hi Zoe, thanks for replying about our childhood furniture! Yes the furniture must have all come together as I remember the mattress as a turquoiseish coloured heavily crisscrossed piece of plastic, not very satisfying as I thought it looked just like the interior door catch of my dad's car! I think I still have all the bits although sadly I painted the dressing table in cream enamel and snapped off the mirror so I could fasten it on the wall of a house. I will quiz my mother but I think she got all my things from the Galt Toy catalogue.
Hi Zoe I'm just sending this message about the little plastic turquoise chairs we both commented on, I had a toy works house too so I think that furniture must have been something to do with them as well? My set had a 2 seater sofa, a chair as in the picture and what I think may be called a club chair (round shaped!) in the same colour. I had other furniture in the set, a double bed, dressing table, cot and some kitchen stuff; cooker, fridge and sink and a pink bathroom set- did you have any of these? ps I still have them somewhere, though the bed and cot fell apart quite early on!
Hi Zoe
thankyou for your welcome still trying to find my way around the site such a lovely place to meet housey friends
Hi Zoe, Thank you for your lovely comments on my Halfway House Tavern, Much appreciated.
Thanks so much for the warm welcome Zoe. I'm still finding my way around the site and enjoying it immensely. We're still on virtually windup internet up here in north Northumberland and it takes some time for pages to load, but I'm getting there
Hi Zoe. Yes Jan is right and clearly very self-disciplined. I, however, am a bit scatty and, like you, enjoy the stimulation of moving between projects. As for the Hobbies house, thanks for the tip about Rebecca. I am actually planning to speak to Linda, but will now also make contact with Rebecca.
Hi Zoe and thanks for both the welcome and the feedback. I will share your comments with the editor and we'll see what we can do. I am always happy to hear any news and feature ideas that you may have. As it happens, I shall be doing a feature on old Hobbies dolls' houses from the 1940s and 50s. I hope to talk to one of the members of this forum as part of the article. Best wishes, Moi
Zoe, thanks for your very kind comments. You look pretty handy around the dolls house yourself....I'll steal some of your ideas you know!
Thanks again Mike
Very nice story. I'm working at my 1. and only hose, but have a few room boxe's too.
You really get space problems I think 
but its very fun to work on.
Hi Zoe, glad you like the pug,he now has a friend I found on eBay, they don't have names yet. Once had a real bulldog called Oscar much harder work than these two, regards Jan
http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=5385958506&sea
rchurl=an%3Dmarion%2Bosborne%26amp%3Bbt.x%3D0%26amp%3Bbt.y%3D0%26 amp%3Bsts%3Dt%26amp%3Btn%3Dbarton%2Bmodel%2Bhomes
Thanks for looking Zoe, one looks like a chandelier , if its possible to find one and take it apart to make one, think will have a bash at this, will send photo if I achieve anything worth looking at. Thanks again
Hmm, link didn't seem to work but if you Google dolls house wind chimes you should find it.
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