Juli's Dollhouse (Dura-Craft Lafayette Dollhouse)

Last year, for Christmas, I made my best friend a dollhouse of her very own, something she never had when she was a child.

The story is that when she was little (long before we ever met), her grandmother had this beautiful, huge, old dollhouse that my friend spent hours lovingly playing with every time she visited. She was absolutely in love with this dollhouse. Secretly she thought of it as hers and knew in her heart that her grandmother, seeing how much she loved this dollhouse, cared for it and played ever so gently with it, would one day give it to her.

During one visit, while she was playing with this dollhouse, my friend let slip how one day she would love to have this dollhouse as her very own, but her grandmother exclaimed, "Oh no, this dollhouse isn't intended for you - I plan to give this to your cousin!" This cousin always threw the pieces around and tryied to break things. My friend's little heart was broken, her spirit crushed and the next time she visited her grandparents, the dollhouse was gone, never to be played with by her again.

Upon hearing this story, my heart broke. After all these years, she still lamented the loss of that dollhouse (she's thirty now). I found the Lafayette kit, made her a dollhouse and have since caught the building bug.