The House of Two Sisters

This is the house of two sisters. This house was built by Keystone of Boston in the mid 1930s, and has been the home of Margarita and Daquiri Boozer since childhood.  Their parents purchased it in 1935 when the girls were 3 and 4 years of age. The Boozers brought all their Schoenhut furniture, even the bath fixtures and kitchen appliances, with them. 

Even though Margarita is a bit older than Daquiri, their mother always dressed them alike. They continue that trend even today....and giggle when people ask them if they are twins.

The house originally had four rooms, but with two girls needing their own space, the Boozer parents converted it to a 6 room house. 

Here we see Margarita and Daquiri reaching for breakfast.

Daquiri's favorite past time is sitting in her comfy chair with a good book. She doesn't read it, she just sits there with it.

Margarita's favorite past time is gazing at herself in the mirror.

One night around midnight, Margarita and her BFF Johnnie Walker decided they were tired of lilac fixtures in the bathroom and painted them all a light mustard color. 

Not to be outdone, Daquiri's BFF Jim Beam, convinced her they should paint the green kitchen sink a lovely shade of white.

Margarita and Daquiri swear that a Grey Goose suggested they paint the maroon sofa and chairs a light cranberry.

Not sure if that is Margarita or Daiquiri going for a tall cool one. 

The girls have left the dining room virtually unscathed....only because Mama Boozer and her good friend Chivas Regal decided one night it should be a flat brown without a varnish finish. 

So we leave Margarita and Daquiri Boozer, enjoying each other's company and holding tight to their BFFs, listening to music on Papa Boozer's vintage radio.

This is how the little house looked when I found it in 2013...missing windows and door, interior walls, stained by dampness, and absolutely filthy. There was a similar but larger dollhouse in the 1938 Keystone catalog, I copied the diamond-paned windows from it. The door in the catalog picture couldn't be seen, so it has a design composite of Tudor doors from other houses. There was no indication that this house had a door surround. To help anchor the door and cover some of the stain that couldn't be removed, I made a door surround by copying the timbers on the upper floor. Mr. Clean scrubbies helped clean the grime left from 80 years of play. And a fresh coat of paint on the steps finished the exterior. 

The dolls are small Caco dolls made in the late 1940s. 

I had a collection of repainted Schoenhut furniture I wanted to use in this house, but I needed 6 rooms. I figured if I was using bastardized furniture I might as well bastardize the interior of the house and give it 6 rooms. And this is the result.

Almost all the furniture is Schoenhut, made from 1928-1934. Patty Cooper has published a wonderful book detailing the furniture Schoenhut made during this period. It can be found here at the Blurb Bookstore.

Exceptions to the Schoenhut furniture are the refrigerator, which is a metal bank with a GE emblem, and the radio of unknown origin. Kage products include the curved floor lamps by the girl's chairs and the pink wing chair in Daquiri's room (yes I painted it). Dolly Dear bedside table lamps are in each bedroom. Strombeker made the trash can in the kitchen, the scale in the bath, and the lamps on the vanity in Daquiri's room. Both beds were missing the original paper covers, I gave them similar covers of fabric. I painted the chair in Margarita's room a matching blue and gave it feet, and I constructed her vanity out of 2 drawers from a Schoenhut dresser and added the end pieces made from the shelves of a Strombecker tea cart. This is what one goes thru when one collects these wonderful old houses and dollhouse furniture, not caring if they are in pristine condition! For me, half the fun of collecting vintage dollhouses is in refurbishing them.