Having decided that our retirement home doesn’t have enough space to display my Dolls’s House, and that it lost the competition for space in the Garage to the Model Railway, I started thinking about Miniature Scenes. In fact thier used to be a magazine, Doll’s House and Miniature Scenes, which shut down only recently.
There is some duplication on this page to what I wrote in my last “My Dolls House” page.
I have visited Newby Hall and the A World In Miniature Museum, both of which have Miniature Scenes, particularly the latter. So, I thought I might convert some of my Doll’s House into such scenes. But in searching the internet I found reference to Room Boxes and indeed a book.
The book inspired me to think in terms of Room Boxes, although initially beginning by finding homes for some of my Doll’s House accessories. One of the significant differences between now and 30 odd years ago when I began is that LED with batteries seem to be the norm rather than the complicated 12v DC wiring circuit I devised for the Doll’s House.
I also discovered that IKEA make Doll’s Houses, which I suppose I must have noticed but never gave much thought. More than that, they produce various boxes which are not expensive but significantly easier to assemble and a lot lighter than I was imagining. An IKET box, which is just the right size for a small room is shown, it is a cube.
Once the new Railway has made more progress I will look at the feasibility of filling this with my Kitchen.
One of the things with these boxes is that because they are light it is not difficult to mount them on walls.
Whilst waiting I think I have already reported that I converted two rooms from the Dolls House in to a sort of Maisonette. Over Christmas Sarah decorated it for the season (though they are not Georgian period decorations, and nor are the dolls.
Incidentally, I have only put figures in one of these two rooms. The guides at Hoghton Tower told us that there are two schools of thought, those who think a room looks better without dolls, and those who think they should be included as that is what they were made for. It is interesting that, as far as I now, 1/12 scale figures are not made very life, though much more lifelike than the peg dolls I remember from childhood. In Warhammer painting, and Model Railway modelling, the object is to get figures that could be mistaken for the real thing (bearing in mind you are unlikely to meet Orcs in real life).
11th January 2026