This is the first dollhouse Nancy ever decorated – the one that got her interested in designing and building so many more of her own small worlds. It is also the largest in terms of the number of rooms and the height. There are three floors divided into five rooms, plus an attic which Nancy set up as a typically messy storage space (detail picture below).
This is the only dollhouse into which Nancy ever put dolls, however when it was given to the museum they had been removed (when it was first displayed at the museum in 2011 the dolls were in it). We believe she removed them herself after that exhibit, presumably to more closely resemble all the subsequent houses and room boxes she made.
The house itself was a gift from her husband in 1972. Nancy created many of the furnishings herself, in part because at the time miniatures had fallen out of favor in the US and therefore it was difficult to find commercially made dollhouse furnishings. She had to innovate to fill the rooms, and this house has some particularly good examples of that.
For instance, the lampshades in the bedroom are toothpaste caps, and the lamp bases are beads and buttons fitted together with wire armatures to hold them together. The brass trash can in the bathroom on the third floor? That’s the cap to a lipstick tube. She made the miniature quilt on the bed herself. Although it can’t be seen in the photos, there is “ice” in the ice bucket on the dining table made from clear glass seed beads.
Third floor rooms – bed and bath
The middle level is a living-dining room, with a table set with plates, glasses, and cutlery, and wing-back chairs in front of a cozy fireplace.
On the ground floor are a very realistic looking front hall and a kitchen, and on the fourth floor – which can only be seen when the hinged roof is flipped up – is the attic.
