Dolls' Houses Past & Present

I've been an adult miniaturist since 1991. I intended to work in 1:12 but by accident my first house was a one-off 1:16 one-room workers cottage (my profile pic). I started my first 1:12 house in 1992. This was my only house in this scale for 22 years, because I fell sideways into vintage Tri-ang houses and Jenny's Home rooms, with Spot-On and Barton furniture plus a bit of Lundby. That collection is centred around two No 50s (used as the two halves of one house), a U and a Daisy Bungalow, all set in 1965. The bungalow forms the one representative chalet for my 1:16 1960s holiday camp (!!). (My two Jenny's Home Large Rooms are used as the camp's manager's office and gift shop/tea bar). I also have two roomboxes: a 1:16 chapel and a 1:12 cottage parlour scene. In February 2014, I became the very lucky owner of a Tri-ang DH/81 from 1933/34 - only my second 1:12 house, but also my oldest and most rare. Unbelievably, this was joined, just over a year later, by its sister house, the very similar but slightly larger, DH 82!

The summer of 2015 saw my collection grow to a total of 17 houses, plus the holiday camp (the equivalent of five very large and six large rooms), the two Jenny's Home Rooms and the two separate room-boxes. I cannot have any more - there is nowhere left in my real-life tiny cottage home for another dolls house! As my capacity for planning far outstrips the time I have for working on them, very few of these projects are finished!

Personally, I've been married to Brian since 1971. We have two grown-up sons and eight grandchildren. Now retired from nursing and midwifery, I'm a family carer, looking after my elderly father on 2 or 3 days/week. Besides dolls houses, my main interests are cooking and entertaining, supporting our local cricket team, music, literature and theatre.