Freya never really had a “dollhouse” moment like many of us do. Her oldest sister had a tin dollhouse that she liked to play with but Freya`s thing was horses. She would have much rather have had a barn. This same sister, a Christmas-aholic, sent Freya a couple Dept. 57 buildings one year. Freya thought a village under her Christmas tree would be nice but the price tags for the Dept 57 pieces were outside of her budget. She found a Greenleaf Village that was more suitably priced and she brought it home with her. It collected mountains of dust for many years until tragedy struck. Freya was completely lost when her beloved dog Fiona died. She was facing her first holiday season without her and a long winter afterwards. In total desperation, she dug out the Village. She found the Greenleaf forum and started building. When she came home from work, she would instantly gravitate to building it.  Freya says that getting to know everyone on the forum and following links to informative web pages got her through that first awful year. It was only after the Village was finished that she realized that miniatures had captured her.

Freya does not consider herself a decorator in the “House Beautiful” sense of decorating. She gets a thought or a feeling about a dollhouse and then she eventually figures out how to express it. She is drawn to shabby, abandoned houses and buildings with overgrown plantings and grimy windows. If it has disintegrating furniture inside then all the better. She pines for the kinds of places whose history you can feel if you just sit quietly and open your senses to them. They are places you will remember because something in them triggered in you a memory, scent, or sound. The only house she ever craved building was her “Monte” Monroe.  Freya likes working on the outside of a dollhouse more then she does the inside. She dreams of winning the lottery. Her first purchase with her winnings will be real slate to shingle Monte`s roof with. The one thing she hates to do is wallpapering. The reason is because she just does not like wallpaper at all, with the exception of crumpled tissue paper. She did that in the entryway of her real life house because she was too lazy to repair the drywall. You are my kind of woman, Freya! It is very easy, you can make it any color you want, and it is always the right scale.

Freya wants to learn weathering and distressing techniques. She wants to learn all aspects of making something look really derelict. Freya plans to learn how to recreate non-manicured landscaping, wind-bent gnarly trees, peeling paint, rust, sagging doors, shutters missing louvers, and a half collapsed barn. She has had a nagging wish to build a replica of the Thomas Clemence House, a New England Saltbox called Old Irons House built in 1655 in Rhode Island.  She is pretty sure she can convince her cabinet maker neighbor  that he would enjoy this challenge.

 She would also love to build a round house that you could pull a room out of,like a wedge of pie. She thinks she could convince her neighbor about this one too. She would also love to build a completely enclosed dollhouse, where you can peek through the windows to see what`s inside. She thinks her neighbor will probably move at that point.

Ultimately, Freya would love to learn how to make real stained glass windows and eggshell mosaics for her dollhouses. She says that eggshells take paint, especially metallic colors, wonderfully. She feels that it would make a fantastic ceiling blended with copper and gold or a decadent bathroom with silver glazed walls and black fixtures. I think it sounds lovely.

Freya has some building plans for 2009. She is working on the RGT wall house. She is also hoping to turn an old birdcage that she owns into a Fair entry. She says that “Snowbirds” are the folks who head south in October and return in May. She is thinking of making the birdcage a home for non-snowbirds. She is playing with bird shapes from clay. She also has her “Monty” to work on.
I asked her which dollhouse was her favorite and which dollhouse would she never give up. Her favorite build will always be the Buttercup a.k.a Hannah-Wells House. She loved each and every plastic puppy as much as if they`d all been real. When the house was finished and she came out of her spell, she really couldn't believe that she created it. But she feels that Monty Monroe will be her forever dollhouse. He has an old soul and she feels they are going to get along very well together.

Freya`s has some advice for all those novice builders out there that is short and sweet. “Look at the picture on the box and remember it bears no relation whatsoever to how your finished house will look.”

You can look at all of Freya`s creations in her gallery here.

Return to the March Newsletter...