I've been feeling guilty for not posting enough. It seems I'm always playing catch up.
If the weather's nice, I'm outside trying to get my gazebo built. Not having ever built one before (my plans came off the net), doesn't do much for speed. If you have trouble calculating angles do not built anything other than a square gazebo....mine's octagonal! I had hoped to have it completed before Sat as we're hosting a big garden party. But the way the weather's being predicted, it may become an indoor party and so the completion date becomes moot. In any case I won't make it.
I have close to a dozen plants that need to go into the ground. Some are waiting for the new gazebo beds to be made as they were bought with that idea in mind. Some were bought as replacements. Ken has a habit of running the lawn tractor over small shrubs, claiming not to have seen them. Some were bought because the price was just so irresistible.
My mother is moving from her townhouse into a condo next month and it seems that I am the only one in the family who packs boxes well....or so I'm told!
My roombox is proceeding at a snails pace & altho I am making progress, there's not a whole lot to show.
Next month I'm going to have to reshingle the boathouse roof. There's already a small leak & we keep a lot more things stored there that aren't nautical in nature. In fact, our boathouse is like other people's garages: there's way more stuff in there and no room for the car or in our case, the boat.
If the weather is crappy, then I'm inside trying to catch up. The July swap that I signed up for is closer than I'd like. My daughter-in-law's birthday is next month & I need to finish her roombox. My house is a disaster area & the laundry is piling up again.
So now that you know my entire list of excuses, I thought I'd let you see some doll houses truly worth seeing. This list is thanks to Susan:

The first one is a million dollar dh 1:1 scale, 9ft tall, 800lbs in weight: This castle currently on loan to the Nassau museum contains more than 100,000 items.

The next is a Mexican doll house c1890 complete with 6 dolls, 7.5' h. x 6' w. Starting bid was $25,000 Auction was held in June 2004. You know how much I love antiques & auctions:

Number three on the list is a 1:1 scale dollhouse, 42 yrs in the making; 40% of its items are antique miniatures. It is 8-1/2 ft long, 50 inches wide & built entirely in one piece taking 3-1/2 yrs to complete; it contains 100 yr old books, 1-1/4 inch music box that you can wind & play; a complete set of movable manicure tools made by a 75 yr old artisan; tapestries made of 40 mesh silk gauze (1600 stitches to the inch): I probably mentioned this one before. The first report that I had of this dollhouse was when it had been temporarily put on eBay.


Are you a lover of fairies? The Enchanted Woodland Faery DH Co. was founded in 1929 by Miss Clare Maddingly who at 12 fell in love with a fairy. Take a look if you don't believe it (even if one of the fairy houses looks surprisingly like the Greenleaf Tudor house), it's still intriguing to see what some people make of simple kits:

The last doll house on the list is a fairy tale castle on display in a Chicago museum. It was commissioned by a silent film star in the late 1920s and completed in 1935 when it was exhibited to raise money for childrens charities during the Great Depression. In only 4 years, it raised $650,000. It contains a set of Royal Doulton china of which only 2 sets were made (Queen Elizabeth owns the other). Hanging in the dining room are tapestries made of the smallest stitches ever stitched (barely visible under a magnifying glass); the drawing room holds 500 yr old Ming vases from the collection of the Dowager Empress of China: Don't they are look worthy of time spent looking! Hmmm....maybe I could just take another peek. Afterall I'm already playing catch up anyway!!
Enjoy