Merry Christmas

I wish you all a Merry Christmas 

and a Happy New Year

Work in progress

I would like to invite you to my new project; Pensionat Storspoven. It is a little family hotel named after a bird, a curlew.

As a base for my hotel a have a dollhouse called "Norrland" which was manufactured by Lundby in 1990. I am going to decorate it with furniture manufactured by Lundby from about 1988 to 1992 with some exceptions. Some hotel related furniture I would probably have to made myself. Today we start with a little house tour to see how far the work has went. 

A sitting area were the guests can relax, listen to music, enjoying a fireplace and so on. Yes, there are no fireplace now but hopefully soon there will be one. 

One of the room, very unfinished as you can see. 

The kitchen 

The dining room. 

On the backside of the house there are three more rooms which I am planing of doing to a bedroom, a gym and a bathroom. As you can see the hotel is lacking many items but as I said, it is a work in progress. I am also planing on writing a nice plate with the hotels name on. Coming back later on when I have any news.  

A new bathroom

Recently I bought these wonderful bathroom items. I don´t know the brand neither the age. The seller got it as a Christmas present in 1968 so they are at least 46 years old.

The blue and grey parts are a kind of plastic material while the black parts are of rather heavy metal material. I think the design are very nice and I guess they might be English.  Someone out there who knows? The mirror and the plant are made by Lundby.

"Mora" clocks

There are clocks and there are clocks. Today I am going to write about grandfather clocks or "Mora klocka" which it is called in swedish.

The "Mora" clock in full size (1:1) was a rather large clock which was placed on the floor. The clockworks were of pendulum clock type and often manufactured in the town of Mora in the province of Dalecarlia in Sweden. Sometimes the body of the clock was painted with flowers or the special pattern called "kurbits" from Dalecarlia. The first known Mora clock is from the fifteenth century and later on in the eighteenth century an important production of these clocks developed in Dalecarlia. This kind of clock became very popular to have at home in the latter part of the eighteenth century and it gave the owner a certain cachet. From the start the clock's shape was straight, but in the beginning of the nineteenth century the clocks were influenced by the Rococo period and got a more curving shape. [source: Wikipedia]

The above "Mora" clocks are from my miniature world and have different ages and shapes. 

I start with the clock which I think is the oldest of the above pictured. I don't know its origin and it misses one of its pointers made out of a metal pin. It has the typical rococo shape and painted with some flowers.

This white clock has a blue clock face which is  pasted on the clock. The rococo-painting is rather simple and is similar to the rococo paintings which are found on early manufactured Lundby furniture. So maybe this clock was manufactured by them. My guess on age is the 1940s to 1950s. 

These two "Mora" clocks have the same shape on the body of the clock as the former one, but with different paintings which are probably not done by hand. The clock faces are green and red and are not showing the same time. These clocks can also have been manufactured by Lundby. 

This "Mora" clock is more tricky to decide the origin of. It has similar hand-painted rococo patterns as the first white clock above, but the shape is similar to the ones which came later one (see the next one presented). A little bit of a mystery. 

Here are the more younger clock compared to the above ones. This was manufactured by Lundby from the 1960s and onward. The clock face is now yellow. The clocks could sometimes show different times. 

These two "Mora" clocks are completely similar except the time on the clock faces. But if the clock faces were twisted before gluing them to the clocks they would show the same time.  

These two "Mora" clocks are also manufactured by Lundby but are of later dates. 

Lotta's house decorated

Last summer I wrote a post about a homemade house which I got from a friend of mine, Lotta. Then it was empty. But today I will show you what I have done with it so far.

I still don't know how old the house is. Except from the little room to the right on upper floor, I think the house is from the 1950s or earlier. I have chosen to decorate it with a mix of furniture which are rather old, but I don't know how old for most of them. Some of them are homemade and some probably made in factory. They have all one thing in common, I like them. 

We start the house tour in the bedroom on upper floor. The bed is so nice. I think it is homemade. In the back we can also see a cradle with a baby. In the right corner there is a table which I am going to complement with a mirror if I can find any who fits. 

The second room on upper floor is actually two rooms. The little one in the corner to the right I think is built in the 1970s. I have chosen to have that room as a guestroom. In the bigger part of the room there are armchairs, a desk and a bookshelf from the 1950s, factory made. The sofa to the right is a sofa bed. As you can notice the scale is not the same on all furniture but  I think it is charming. 

Downstairs to the left there is a kitchen. I got the cupboard and the sink-stove combination by mail just some days ago and I think it went out very well in this kitchen with those items. I have also recently put up the curtains which is older ones. The red pram missed a lot  when I got it, for instance have I put on wheels.  

I funny thing happened when I put up the clock on the wall. It is made of tinplate and it started to go. The pendulum on the clock went all by itself from one side to the other for quite some time. When I had it laying in a box with other stuff it has been quiet and still.   

The last room for today is the living room. The sofa set in the middle is homemade but I love them. The house has also recently got a fireplace, probably homemade and some cupboards and a radio. The clock on the cupboard to the right is home made and very good made. 

EDI dolls

Doll houses could be rather dull if not anyone lived in them so therefore I am today going to show you some of my oldest dolls. They are residing in my doll house from the 40s.

Most of them are German EDI dolls. EDI stands for Erich Dittman who manufactured dolls 1948 to 1960. The dolls were made of celluloid or tortulon (a kind of plastic) and dressed into many nationalities. Also characters from fairy tales were made.

On one of my dolls I have found an EDI marking in the neck of the doll. Some of the dolls have their clothes glued to their body so it is impossible to check for any markings. 

This Scandinavian couple or perhaps Swedish, was sold in Sweden at least in the mid 50s. I have some more dolls similar to this couple but only one complete couple, as far as i know. The other ones missing some parts of their clothing  

Here are guests from Germany I think. They arrived just a couple of days ago and are my latest purchase to my doll house world. 

This old doll who sits in the corner I am not sure of what brand it is. It is marked Germany so it could be an EDI. Anyone who knows anything of this doll?

A homemade dollhouse

The third doll house which I picked up this summer is a home made house with lots of charm. It is a gift from my friend Lotta in Malmö who got it as a child. I don't know so much about its history more than that Lotta got it in the 70s.

The scale of the house is bigger than the Lundby houses. It is in rather good shape with not so many damages on the wall papers expect the water damage in the biggest room on ground floor. Its tricky to date it but I have found some electric wiring work which I think is from the 70s and not from the beginning, because I think the house itself is older. I also think that the little blue room on top floor is a later construction, maybe also from the 70s. The rest of the wall papers I think is older than the 70s. They could be  from the 60s or even the 50s. I like the house very much anyway and I am going to furnish it with things from mainly the 50s and which are in a larger scale than that of Lundby. 

The left room on upper floor has a cute and a little childish wall paper. In the right corner you can see a electric wire from the 70s.  All floors in the house, expect the little blue room have had wall-to-wall carpet. Probably also from the 70s. But I am going to keep the wooden floors. 

On the right side on the upper floor there are two rooms, where I think the little blue one is a later construction. The little blue room has also its floor painted red. I think it has been used as a bathroom. The rest of the walls has the same cute wall papers as the left room, previously described. 

The left room on ground floor has also cute wall papers and between the two rooms on this floor is is a door. By the way the only door in the house. The door seems to have been cut in the bottom end and that is probably done when the house got the wall-to-wall carpets. Otherwise the door could not open. This room has also a window with window glass (plastic material). 

The fifth and last room in the house is the biggest one and has unfortunately a water damage on the back wall. Otherwise it has a rather cute wall paper with little flowers. The curtain is made of typical fabric from the 70s and need to be fixed. This room has also a window.