When I was about eight, my grandfather built a dollhouse for my sister and me. He had a small workshop out behind the house he and my grandmother retired to in Phoenix and so was able to keep the entire family stocked with drink coasters, treasure boxes, and cribbage boards. And dollhouses. (He also invented a putting trainer back there. It got a nice writeup in a golfing magazine but never really went anywhere.)
The dollhouse was one of the many things I brought home with me last weekend after my dad and stepmom cleaned out their attic. It needs a little work; it was mauled by us kids for several years, and then it spent a couple of decades in the stifling, dirty space over the garage. The walls are marred with fingerprints, some of the joints have begun to separate, and the shingles are curling up.
Last night Jill and I spent some time cleaning and shoring it up, but mostly we marveled at the thought and work that went into it.
The Tomy furniture that came with it is cheap plastic, but it's solid and cleverly made cheap plastic.
I love the tiny hairdryer.
My favorite things are the touches my grandfather made himself. It makes me really happy to picture a grown man carefully cutting out rugs and scavenging his wife's drawers for old Christmas cards to hang on the walls and napkin rings to put plastic plants in.
Unless my grandmother was in charge of decorating, which makes me just as happy. Although she had artistic talent and excellent taste, I don't think of her as especially whimsical.
After my sister and I got all the furniture in place, Eric and I arranged the family just so:
The teen daughter sobs inconsolably on the bed.
Dad takes a well-deserved rest.
The housekeeper sets aside her broom for a moment to teach the young master to shoot craps.
The neighbors are downstairs, making themselves at home...
...while Mom sits alone at the dining room table, staring blankly into space.
(Yeah, we're jerks.)
My grandfather died almost 20 years ago. He was a nice Gramps, creative and generous with a repertoire of novelty songs, a sly sense of humor, and a big sentimental streak. I hadn't forgotten all that, but neither had I really thought about it in a while.
I don't know what the hell I'm going to do with this thing--it's huge--but I'm really glad we have it.
Strangely, it looks a little like the house I live in now.