Thrift Store Find: Addy's Prototype Meet Dress

 Yesterday, I had a doctor's appointment in a town about 30 minutes away from me.

Several hours after the appointment, I had an ASL class in the same town.

I decided to not spend time and gas driving back and forth after my doctor's appointment. 

Instead, I visited several of my favorite stores in this town.

Since I had plenty of time, I decided to stop by one thrift store that I never find anything at. I thought maybe I would find some small accessories to use in the doll house.

To my utter surprise, I found Wellie Wishers Emerson for $7 in among the kid's toys. She had her dress and boots and everything.

I was even more surprised when I found Molly in the collector dolls section. Molly was very dirty and had messy hair.

She was marked at $5.

And she was wearing Addy's prototype meet dress.

I knew what it was immediately. I have seen one in person before. One of my friends has it and showed it to me.

I couldn't believe it.

I circled the store several times to make sure that I hadn't missed anything, then I went to check out.

I still can't believe it.

I don't know how I have such good luck at the thrift store. Living in Wisconsin probably helps, since we had the MCM sale for many years. 

Wow.

I thought for sure I would wake up and find that this was all a dream.

Dollhouse Floors

 I love wood floors. I remember being about 7 and telling my grandmother that I loved the wood floors in her house.

I hated that the American Girl dollhouse came with rugs printed on the floor. It looks so fake.

I also had my own plans for rugs. My older cousin Louise crocheted these beautiful yarn "dish clothes."

I always thought they were too pretty to use as dish clothes. I saved them and hoped to use them as doll rugs someday. That day is coming.

Louise now has arthritis in her hands that is very painful, so I think she will be excited to see her work in my dollhouse.

All of this to say- I covered the dollhouse floors in contact paper that looks like wood. No more printed rugs!

Of course, I COULD have just covered the printed rugs with my own rugs, but that would dictate where I placed my rugs. This gives me more freedom to change things up.

The contact paper that I got is here. It's called "MelunMer Wood Peel and Stick wallpaper."

Dollhouse Customization Links

 From the minute that I even thought about owning an AG dollhouse, I knew that I wanted to customize it.

I studied art history in college. I still love art and want to integrate that into the dollhouse.

I originally said that I wanted a vibe that would be somewhat Victorian, but also classic for any era.

Well, so far the Victorian is rather winning out.

It took me a while to figure out how to bring the vision to life, and I want to share that with you.

I worked on figuring all of his out BEFORE I started putting the dollhouse together.

First of all, I wanted cloud murals on the ceiling, so I added cloud cling film to the ceiling. 

I wanted wood floors without a rug design printed on them, so I got contact paper with a wood floor design to put on the floors.

I wanted bookcases to hold tiny books, so I bought these 16 inch cabinets. 

I wanted William Morris wallpaper. I looked at a LOT of ways to potentially do this.

I hope that I made the right decision. *crosses fingers.*

I ended up buying William Morris wrapping paper to use as wallpaper.

For my library, (formerly the kitchen) I wanted the seaweed pattern. It's very dramatic, but I hoped it would be broken up by the bookcases.

For the living room and bedroom, I wanted the Leicester pattern.

For my writing room (formerly the bathroom), I wanted the clover pattern.

Anyone who has known me for more than five minutes knows that I love stained glass and Frank Lloyd Wright.

I had thought of putting some of my own photos in the windows of the dollhouse.

I decided instead to add stained glass windows.

To do this, I again bought cling film, to place on clear plastic and to put in the windows. I was able to find some at the right size with Frank Lloyd Wright designs. They even had two of my favorite designs, the water lily design and the Lake Geneva tulip design.

I also wanted to hang up some tiny vintage-looking keys near the front door for the realism factor. I bought these keys, and was very pleased with them.

I am very, very excited to see all of this come together.

I hope that I am able to finish the dollhouse before too many years pass, haha.

I am definitely making this a more complicated process than it needs to be. However, I am making it into something that I can really enjoy and be proud of. That is worth the time.

Cloud Ceiling Mural

 I am adding a mural of clouds to the ceiling of the first floor of the AG dollhouse.

This is inspired by the Long Gallery at Harlaxton Manor in Grantham, UK.

Unfortunately, I am not much of an artist.

So instead of painting the clouds by hand, I bought a cling film depicting a blue sky and clouds, and used Mod Podge to attach it to the ceiling, before I put the dollhouse together.

If you do anything like this, I recommend unwinding the cling film from the spool for at least a day before you apply it, to let it flatten itself out a bit.

I used a squeegee to smooth out any wrinkles while gluing.

This makes me very happy, and it cost $6 for the cling film. It's far nicer than anything I could paint!

Here it is in place on the ceiling. I will trim the edges once the glue is dry.

Unpopular Opinions about the AG Dollhouse

 I am planning to totally personalize the American Girl doll Dollhouse.

There's a lot I don't like about the original. 

I don't care about sound effects. I'm deaf. It's a waste of money to me. No doubt they were trying to make it more playable, but it doesn't appeal to me. 

I like working lights in a dollhouse, yes. I wish the light fixtures were more classic and less trendy.

I don't see any need for a bathroom. Again, this seems to be popular with kids. I just don't care.

I really hate images of furniture and rugs printed on the floor and walls. It makes it look like a cheap Barbie dollhouse made of cardboard that I had as a kid. 

I think having a hot tub on the second floor is silly. It makes it less like a real house.

I think they would have made more money by cutting out a lot of the special effects and pricing it lower. That would have made it more achievable for more people. Obviously they were trying to make it "luxury." To me, they just made it silly.

I'm planning to make mine a lot more Victorian and classic and remove a lot of the included features.  I want to be able to display both historical and modern dolls and change the interior for both the season and the time period. 

I have a lot of ideas about how to do this. I will share soon.

American Girl x KidKraft Luxury Dollhouse On Its Way!

 I saw in a group that the American Girl x KidKraft Luxury Dollhouse was being sold in Big Lots.

Problem: I live in a state without Big Lots.

I asked my ever-suffering best friend to check her Big Lots. They had it available at a super low price. $40!

She bought it for me and took it to my parents' house.

My mom is bringing it to me on Friday.

I plan to personalize it. I'm very excited!

Honestly, I plan to paint the walls white, add personal pictures in the picture frames and in the windows.

I will add furniture and different curtains.

I would really like to add William Morris wallpaper, but that might be too much, due to the problem of finding some in the right scale and working around the windows and things.

I wouldn't do all this if I had bought it at full price. For what I paid, I can do whatever I want with it.

Apparently, it is huge and barely fit in my friend's car.

She is SUCH a good friend.