Betsy McCall Dollhouse: More Progress

It's not often that I get to share a progress update on one of my houses, but I've made some time to work bit by bit on my Betsy McCall house. For quite some time, the house has been sitting cramped on a work table. It's tricky to get to, and the lighting stinks. These factors don't help, nor did the clutter in and around the house.

Over the last few months, though, I've been organizing my collection, and even sold two houses, in the spirit of streamlining my possessions. I have now found a home for most of my furnishings and accessories in neat little boxes that are all organized in one space. This also helped me clean out the shelving and re-organize the placement of some of my houses. I got rid of a table and opened up my main dollhouse room, which is in our basement.

An improvement, right?

Since I moved the McCall house into my main dollhouse room from the work space, I was able to pay it some attention. I admit to be inspired by recent posts on Retro Renovation about Kate's valiant efforts to build her McCall house from the plans and decorate. She just got a hold of some lovely retro papers. I am super jealous :)

I've not taken as big a leap as Kate -- more baby steps -- but I have made some changes. First, I painted the trim and other accents in the house, which I had not done previously.

Then, I tackled the the bedroom, which adjoins the main living space. I have already papered the living space in a bold graphic pattern, so I was looking to keep with patterns, but in complementary colors.

I decided on geometric yellow and gray scrapbook paper for the two side walls, and then a new polka dotted pattern from the Paper Source. I think they work quite well together!

This is a fun and great house to have made some small progress on -- I hope to get to more of it in the near future. I think the bathroom might be next!

Credits: Daybed is Paul MacAlister; credenza is by Cyd of Mini Mod Pod; grey rug is a felt coaster; white rug is adhesive felt; geometric wall paper is scrapbook paper and dotted paper is from the Paper Source; lamp is a dollhouse store find. Accessories are Lundby; Re-ment; AG Minis; Paris Renfroe; and The Shopping Sherpa.

The time it took me: 3 hours, including painting of trim, wallpapering, and pattern-cutting!