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I have recently acquired a amazingly beautiful doll house for FREE, hard to believe, but it's true. There are a few cosmetic issues on the exterior that need replaced and/or fixed: The entire porch railing. Most of the clear plastic window backings are missing. Doors need it be replaced. Trim work needs to be replaced, and from what I can tell, a balcony/walkway of some sort existed above thw3rd floor window and wrapped around both sides of the house. I want to restore & repair it to prime condition & do it correctly. I was never lucky enough as a child to have one of my own. So this is a very special project for me to say the least, lol. I have no information on it what so ever & would really like to figure a few things out about it, if possible: ¹What particular kind of doll house it? ²How old is it? ³What can be DIY/hand-made instead of buying expensive pre-made kits, like porch railing, banisters ect? ⁴Is it possible to add a balcony to the 2nd or 3rd floor? ⁵Is it possible to modify an existing window into a doorway? ⁶Is it possible to add/remove interior walls to make rooms/areas bigger/smaller? ⁷Can a door be added to an existing interior wall? ⁸Can a 2nd door leading to the porch be added on the side of the house? I have no clue and figured the best thing to do was ask. ANY tips & advice on the best way to go about any of this would be greatly appreciated! My ultimate goal is to completely restore & repair the entire doll house top to bottom.

So, Monday morning started like all the others. I started writing down things I had to do this week because it was gonna be a busy week full of appointments. Around 11 am I got a email from a friend from the Greenleaf forum. Emily told me that one of my houses that I sold years ago was on Craigslist in Wisconsin. At first, I pictured it to be one of my earlier houses before I was using paper clay. I pictured it to maybe one from when I first started out because I sold a few of those here in Wisconsin and Illinois. I clicked the link and was surprised because it was the McKinley dollhouse kit that I built for the Greenleaf construction blog!! How did that get here from California?!! I sold it to a lady who lived in California in 2008. I remembered a couple of years ago seeing it on eBay. So, I said to myself “before you get excited, send them a message.” The listing had been “Live” for 11 days and it looked like a thrift/charity store. I sent the message and then decided to look them up and call instead of waiting for an email reply. The store was a little over 2hrs away from me. I called and asked about the dollhouse listed on Craigslist. My name was signed on the back of the house so he began to tell me about how it was dropped off in the donation center with a box of other related things. He kept talking about it’s a nice solid built dollhouse. He said he don’t know who Tracy Topps was but that the person dropping it off said he’d come back with more dollhouse stuff he had to get rid of! So finally I asked, was the dollhouse still there, and he said yes it was! I had to pay over the phone because they couldn’t hold it for me otherwise. I told him I was Tracy Topps and I had built this and shipped it to a lady in California 11 years ago! He got excited then and said well now I want to know how it ended up back here and how did you find out since you live so far away from here. So we chatted for a little bit longer. I wanted to go get it Monday so badly because I was worried it might be gone when I got there or damaged more. I got there and it’s still pretty solid. Some shingles are missing or paint is scuffed off. It’s dusty and the insides are scuffed and damaged a little. The staircase and fireplace had been removed and damaged and the lighted fire doesn’t work in it. Several other lights are missing or broken too. I haven’t checked to see what’s working or not because once again, I have errands to run. But, when I got home, I opened the 3 drawers below the house and discovered several dolls and other things along with the box of furniture that has some things from Rhuetter Porcelain & Heidi Ott. A few of the dolls are by Detta’s Darlings (eBay name) some things I’m not sure who made. I got this all for about $100 including a tank of gas! They were just all happy it found it’s way back to someone who could clean it up and fix it. I think several people who worked there didn’t even know it was there because they all were saying how nice it was and asking each other where was it at in the store and how much was it sold for when it made its way to the front of the store. I never find dollhouse bargains at thrift stores EVER so finding my OWN dollhouse was exciting, but finding all this other stuff was really a treat!! I’m not sure what I’m gonna do with it yet. I’ll decide as I restore it but that’s the story of Stone Brair dollhouse (Which was the name we gave it back then and it’s signed as that on the back you can see my photos of some of what I got by clicking here https://flic.kr/s/aHsmJNPf1h Thank you Emily for letting me know and Thanks to Carmen who told her about it! I’m so EXCITED to have this back!

Hi, my name is Laura. I will try to make this quick. My parents had a doll house built for me in 1984. It was is really great condition until accidentally swiped it with my car because we had just moved and it was in my garage. Yes, I cried! Anyway, I have decided to fix it up. I am just not sure what to do first. I bought new carpet, wall paper, new shingles and paint. I have no idea if or how i should remove the old shingles or just replace the ones that are broken. I don't know if I should paint the house and shutters first. ( i hope i bought the right paint) And I don't know when i should put the wall paper up (i hope i bought the right wall paper glue) Basically, if anyone could please give me any advice i would really appreciate it. I also knocked down the beautiful pillars. I will attach some pics. Thank you in advance. (it wouldn't let me upload the pics so I had to try this way) Thanks, Laura http:// http://