Every dollhouse is a treasure. We build them, decorate them, furnish them, populate them with little people, and show them off with pride of place in our homes. We search endlessly for the perfect miniatures to fill our dollhouses and give them that extra touch of realism. In every tiny detail, we strive to create a miniature home that looks so realistic that one feels they could step inside and live there. But the one detail that is so crucial to achieving our goals of realism is lighting!

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Anyone who has ever wired a dollhouse will be the first to tell you that Thomas Edison had it easy because he never worked in miniature. Adding lights to a dollhouse is probably one of the most admired, yet dreaded aspect of dollhouse building. However, the magic of lights in a dollhouse is an allure too strong to resist and sooner or later most of us will give it a try. When the novice makes the decision to wire a house, there are a lot of questions about ‘What hardware will I need?’ and ‘What do these terms means?’ In this article, we'll provide the basic information you need before you start wiring your dollhouse.

Dollhouse Lights...

The easiest method for wiring a house is the round wire method (sometimes called hard wiring). The principle for this method is much the same as using lights in your real house. The lamps and light fixtures have an electric wire with a plug on the end. The plug plugs into a power strip which attaches to a transformer that plugs into your wall outlet. A few plugs, some hidden wires and voila! Your dollhouse is sparkling with light! Sound easy? It is.

This tutorial provides step by step directions on how to light a dollhouse using the Round wire Hybrid method, combining round wiring with tape wiring. There’s also a special bonus tutorial on how to lengthen wires on light fixtures!

Just in time for the release of the Greenleaf Gloucester Front Opening Dollhouse kit, Christine shares her expertise in wiring the front panel. What a great way to add sparkle to the front of a fantastic house!

Darrell Payne is the tape wire guru of the miniature world. That’s why we’ve included his famous guide to tape wire in our issue on electrifying your dollhouse. No collection of wiring tutorials would be complete without it!

February`s Member of the month is Rebecca (butlerestates). She has been a member of the forum since October 15, 2008. Just because she is new to us does not mean she is new to the craft. She has some wonderful miniature eyecandy and she does excellent work.

Lucky seems to be happy enough sleeping in Julie’s Harrison, even if it is upside down. But he just can’t seem to get those contractors to clean up at the end of the day. They’re always leaving bricks in the most inconvenient places.

If you'd like to submit your pet's picture for consideration for the Critter Corner, you can upload pictures in the "Good Pets acting bad!" or "Good Pets acting cute!" galleries at the Greenleaf Forum.