No ladies....and gents....I am not talking about a brown-eyed handsome man, but that would be nice too!
I am referring to the Rich Toys house pictured below and the Reliable Plastics Company furniture that fits it so comfortably. This house dates from the mid to late 1950s while the Canadian made Reliable furniture was produced from the late 1940s thru the 1950s.
This was a bargain house I found early summer....$18. After adding replacement chimneys, front porch and windows, all it needed was a scrub down and coat of paint on the interior. It still took me forever....
Meet the Reliables!
Our homeowners....Roberta and Robert and their children Robin and Robby. They want to show you their new home....and all their imported Canadian furniture. (These are American made Flagg dolls, produced 1947 thru mid 1980s.)
Yes, they are a little scruffy looking, but Roberta claims she hasn't learned how to work her imported Canadian washing machine just yet.
Robin and Robby want you to see their room first!
They like sharing their room since they have their own space...when Robby remembers. Plus mom let them pick favorite pictures to hang over their beds. Rich Toy Company provided the pretty blue flocked carpeting.
Robin picked a picture of babies, and mom framed it in pink to match her bed.
Robby picked pictures of dogs because he is hoping mom and dad will get the hint that he really really really would like to have a puppy.
Along with their beds that can also be stacked as bunk beds, they have a small chair that doubles as a "potty chair....but they have their usable potty chair in the bathroom.
OK, now Robin and Robby can go play while the adults show us the rest of their house.
You enter the house through the dining room....which came with a flocked green rug, as did most Rich Toys houses of this period. Yes, GREEN. BRIGHT green.
The dining room furniture is not proportionate in scale...the china cabinet is small while the buffet is large; plus the china and buffet are ornate while the chairs and table are plain. Neither the buffet or china cabinet have functioning drawers or doors.
To the right of the dining room is the kitchen. The Reliable kitchen appliances are a nice cream and blue, and again no functioning doors or drawers. Well, except for the high chair that has a movable tray and that darn washing machine that has a wringer/roller that moves to the side with a lid that comes off so Roberta can fill it with clothes, soap, a little fabric softener, a red sock......
Whether or not the drawers and doors are functioning, Reliable made an attractive kitchen set for little girls and boys.
To the left of the dining room is the living room...or parlor.
Roberta is proud of her living room furniture. Everything has the Reliable brand with the exception of the table lamps....American made by Jaydon . The end tables on either side of the sofa are part of the bedroom set.
This room also has the flocked GREEN carpeting.
The Reliable living room set came in both blue and red.
Reliable made high quality plastic furniture. The living room pieces are as attractive from the rear as they are from the front. These pieces remind me of the original Plasco furniture of the same period
Completing my set are the piano, fireplace, radio and 3-legged table. I am missing the piano bench, floor lamp, table lamps and tea cart. I won the tea cart on Canadian ebay once, but it was lost in the mail
Moving back upstairs.....
To the right of Robin and Robby's room is the bathroom. It was produced in a pretty pink and blue....and is perfect in this bathroom with the printed pink and white diamond tile design. These pieces are functioning....the lid on the bathinette raises, the commode lid and seat raise, and on the potty chair the tray raises, the seat raises, and the potty itself is removable. The fish decos are sticky plastics that I found at Michael's.
Who, just who, wouldn't want a pink pink pink and blue bathroom???
Moving on to the 6th and last room in this house...
...this is a nice large room that easily houses Roberta and Robert's lovely Reliable bedroom furniture!
The bedroom furniture, like the china hutch and buffet in the dining room, is very ornate. I also have the beds with a blue coverlet, but they are missing most of the decorative knobs. The lamp is Renwal.
Reliable made both their vanity and their dresser with a tilting mirror. The vanity has an accompanying stool. Although the mirrors tilt and the sewing machine lid flips up to show a machine attached, the drawers of the vanity, dresser and chest are not functional.
Little girls probably considered this a "dream" bedroom set!
Reliable was licensed by the American firm Ideal Toy Company to copy some of its products. Below is a comparison between the Reliable dollhouse products (on the left) and the same pieces sold by Ideal (on the right).
kitchen.......
bath.......
Zillner and Cooper's Antique and Collectible Dollhouses share that the floor radio, grand piano, and the dining room chairs (like the Ideal kitchen chairs) were also made from the Ideal Toy Co. molds.
Did you notice the unique curtains in this house? Let me show you close-ups.
These are the creation of my friend Diane Taylor of La Boheme Dolls (who also made my lovely Constance doll.) She wasn't pleased with the way fabric falls on the windows of a dollhouse. Thinking that fabric was often too full, she created these curtains that lay flat against the dollhouse wall. First she designed this soft flowing curtain, printed the curtain design on several of her favorite prints, glued the print to a thin board for stability, and used museum putty to attach them to the wall. I love them! I am trying to convince her to make these available on her Etsy sites, La Reine Boheme or Peacock Pye.
Now that Roberta and Robert have taken us on a tour of their new home, we find Roberta showing Robert the housewarming gift her sister has sent.....
"Oh, " says Robert, "OK. Fine. Cute."
Roberta thinks that went well. Maybe.
We leave the Reliable's new home with Robert talking to Tweety Bird. Wonder if it is about Roberta's new kitchen sign....
My summer bargain makes a nice showplace for my collection of the lovely Reliable furniture made by our good neighbors to the north!
Update: In 2024 the Reliable family "moved on up" to the West side of my Dollhouse Village. You can see their new home here.
