Barclay II has arrived and I didn't recognize him!

Back in 2010 I won a small Keystone of Boston dollhouse on Ebay, but sadly it was totally destroyed at the Pittsburgh bulk package sorting plant of the USPS. I named him Barclay and wrote an obituary for him, you can read about it here. My son said the obit was creepy, but I was sad to lose a Keystone dollhouse that was "new" to me. 

Here is Barclay as seen on Ebay.

Barclay II arrived earlier in the year and looked familiar, but I didn't immediately make the connection to the original Barclay. I posted about the new Barclay recently....you can read about Barclay II here.

And is Barclay II sitting on the shelf next to HUD, his "cousin" that was looking forward to meeting him? No, HUD is currently in "palliative care" waiting his turn to be refurbished. 

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!

New ETSY shop: reproduction parts for Keystone and Rich dollhouses!

lantern for a Keystone house

A great new shop opened on ETSY for dollhouse enthusiasts needing reproduction replacements for missing parts on their Rich Toys and Keystone of Boston vintage dollhouses. The proprietress is JoAnn Belanger, who for several years has made these parts available to friends and associates. How wonderful that now everyone can have access to the parts needed to complete that treasured vintage dollhouse! 

Here is a note from JoAnn telling about her shop:

"Finding and restoring vintage dollhouses, especially Rich Toy Co. and Keystone of Boston dollhouses, has become a retirement hobby for my husband and me. As we restore the dollhouses in my collection, we make duplicates of parts we needed which we then make available to other dollhouse collectors.  

I recently opened an ETSY shop to market the parts I now have available.  We have recreated windows, doors, stoops, chimneys, etc., in as authentic a look as possible. We work with wood, molding materials, resin for casting parts, silk screening, and sewing materials. The parts are representative of the originals as verified in the Dian Zillner books and the Rich Toy Co. Dollhouse book.    

 Please visit my ETSY shop, “Dollhouse Wonders” or search by my name, JoAnn Belanger.  I continue to add items to my ETSY shop as I have time. You may also contact me by email at  joannbelanger@gmail.com.  

I always appreciate connecting with other dollhouse enthusiasts.

Here are pictures of some of the items created by JoAnn and Don that came to complete my vintage dollhouses...

front door for a Keystone house

resin window for the newer Keystone houses

(these are wonderful!)

fence post topper for a Rich house 

(original on left, JoAnn's on the two right)

lantern on a 30's era Rich house

front door on a 30's era Rich house.
you can see an original door on the picture above.

(I added the green paint but JoAnn said she would have done that for me!)
JoAnn also makes the flower pots!

chimney on a 30's era Keystone house

(sorry Don, I haven't gotten around to painting it)

chimney toppers on a 30's era Rich dollhouse

(these are so often missing)

one of JoAnn's wonderful replacement windows 

for a 30's era Rich house

(these come in many sizes)

The Keystone lantern at the top of this post is also one of JoAnn's products....and her replacement reproductions are reasonably priced!

Visit her shop! If you don't find what you need, do contact her at joannbelanger@gmail.com ...as it might be in production.

I feel so lucky to have found two artists who are willing to share their wonderful vintage dollhouse creations!