Doll Houses

We have an immense doll house downstairs that I'm sure we've featured in the blog at some distant point in the past. Kara got it for free on freecycle. It was beat up and the roof was an ugly pink. The first thing we did was glue fabric over the old wallpaper. It gave the interior a fresh, clean look. Next we spray painted the roof a mellow yellow. The floors were stained, so we had to figure out how to refinish them. After pondering long and hard (for two years!), Kara finally painted them. The three story house had been dissembled to get it out of the previous owner's home (it's too large to fit through a standard door frame), so we had to reassemble it after we did all the redecorating. I was amazed Kara still had all the pieces since it had been moved around quite a bit. 

Now it sits downstairs in the tv room taking up a lot of space. Viva ignores it. Bentley and Jake ignore it. Lincoln likes to play with the furniture in it, so it gets some use. I'm not sure what age group uses doll houses like this one. Are trio too old or too young? The house is so tall, it's not really suited to small children. 

The fact that the trio do not play with the downstairs doll house does not mean they don't like doll houses. The boys love playing with the Star Wars Dollhouse AKA the Death Star.

I keep the Death Star stored on the top shelf in my bedroom closet--out of the reach of Lincoln Altman. On Sunday Jake asked to play with it, so I took it downstairs and sat in on the high kitchen counter. Jake pulled out the large array of Star Wars minifigures that go with the Death Star and he staged battles on the ship. Bentley joined him for a while.