Tuesday, November 29, 2022

In search of Donna Lee dollhouses or boxed furniture sets

 A new book on dollhouse furniture is in the works....the working title is  Nancy Forbes and Donna Lee Dollhouse Furniture. Patty Cooper is looking for pictures of Donna Lee dollhouses or boxed sets of Donna Lee furniture. 

Donna Lee dollhouse furniture was made by the Woodburn Mfg. Co. in the mid 1940s. It was made entirely of wood in the ¾" to one foot scale. It came in boxed sets to furnish the bedroom, bathroom, living room, dining room and kitchen. A dollhouse was marketed using the Donna Lee name in 1944.

If you would like to share pictures of boxed sets of any of the Donna Lee furniture or a Donna Lee dollhouse with Patty, please contact her at gardenmont@aol.com. 

Sunday, November 20, 2022

Dollhouse Wonders is open again!


                     

                       DollhouseWonders

                                           Reproduction dollhouse parts as well as misc. items

Dollhouse Wonders, the go to shop for reproduction parts for Rich Toys and Keystone of Boston vintage dollhouses and other miscellaneous items, has reopened for the winter to spring months. 

If you are not familiar with Dollhouse Wonders on Etsy, it's a shop, run by JoAnn and Don Belanger, that specializes in providing reproduction parts for those missing pieces on vintage Rich and Keystone dollhouses that were made between 1935 and 1960. Made of Masonite and wood, these vintage houses are often missing chimneys, light fixtures, windows and shrubbery that were original to the house when it was new. 

JoAnn is a long-time collector of these vintage houses, and luckily for her, Don is an excellent craftsman with wood. JoAnn silk screens and makes items from resin, so between the two of them they were able to bring JoAnn's vintage dollhouses back to their original beauty. She started making small items for her friends that also collected these vintage Rich and Keystone houses, resulting in her opening this Etsy shop for other collectors of these wonderful old dollhouses. 

Here are some recent orders sent to customers....


....flowers strips for Keystone and Rich window boxes, brown shutters for a Rich house, doors for Keystone and Rich houses, latticed windows for a Rich house, and a Rich porch with pink vases.


This is a fireplace first found in a 1936 Rich dollhouse but can be used in any dollhouse of your choosing.


These items are made from resin....a flower urn or bird bath, Strombecker bowls, and a shrub that adorned the front of a Rich dollhouse.


Here are Rich and Keystone chimneys made of wood, and three lattice windows with hanging rods for the Keystone houses of the late 1930s and 1940s.

You can locate many items made by the Belangers at Dollhouse Wonders that will complete your dollhouse....even if it isn't a Rich Toys or Keystone of Boston dollhouse!