Dollhouse

For Christmas, Tyler made Violet a dollhouse.  It is wooden and quite beautiful in its simplicity; 3 floors, a roof, and just enough walls to give the impression of house without too many corners and details to get in the way of little hands.
But, let me begin again---
Have you heard of this store The Land of Nod?  They have lovely toys.  Too lovely for our price range, normally.  But man is their stuff nice.  Flashing lights and plastic is edited out of most of their things;
an indie-yuppie mom could go bananas in that store.
Well, anyway, we had been thinking of a dollhouse type thing for Violet for a while, and of course I found the most perfect one at Land of Nod with the most perfect little wooden dolls and wooden dollhouse furniture.  But the price of the house was just a little too high....
So, somewhere in between dissertation writing, teaching, preschooling, etc.....  my crafty and coffee-fueled husband was able to find a moment or two to recreate this gorgeous little house for our daughter.... and then the grandparents organized buying various pieces of furniture and dolls so that the little dolly home could be complete.

In the past week, Violet's little dollhouse has had many visitors; a barrage of tiny rubber cats, little people, and lego safari animals can often be found occupying the main living area.  She has a little Dora The Explorer doll who seems to have become the live-in waitress, serving tea to everyone night and noon.  The daddy doll is almost always on the toilet, and the mommy (I am happy to say) is often sleeping in the top of the bunk bed, under a crisp pink blanket.

Usually Ernie and Burt can be found in the bath tub, and poor Violet is constantly having to switch all of the furniture around daily to make room for a party or, of course, a parade coming through.  The little boy doll came with a back pack, and so he is usually going off to India or Paris, and the refrigerator is stocked full of dried split peas.

Photos--