Dollhouses

The whole apartment seemed to be covered in a layer of sawdust. I remember my father’s sawhorse set up in the middle of our marbled living-dining room. The melamine board balanced on its top seemed to take up all of the space in the small room. We had been imagining this project for years. Its first plans had been drawn up when I was just eight years old, at the pine desk in our first Spanish apartment. I had presented those plans to Dad. He looked them over with the eye of a hobby architect, then said, “Dream bigger. Why don’t you put a little more into it—really make it your dream dollhouse.” And so, I had.

The final product was simpler than my grand ideas, but far more wonderful. The thin wooden walls were held together with hot glue, a single neat bead that ran the length of each corner. It had four rooms. The front bowed out, expanding the space in the living room and master bedroom with bay windows. A small kitchen sat next to the living room on the first floor, and a tiny nursery was tucked under the eaves of the second floor.

We covered the outside in shiny teal green contact paper—my own version of Green Gables—and trimmed it out with strips of white. The roof was made of glossy black contact paper. Inside, I decorated each room in soft colors from sample pots of real house paint.

I filled that house with the results of birthday and Christmas lists: miniature sets of living room furniture, plastic kitchen cabinets, and toy cribs. My dad built a bed from leftover melamine scraps, and my mom sewed soft bedding. Mom and I labored over tiny curtains made from lace scraps. There was a miniscule knit afghan on the back of the fluffy couch, and tiny throw pillows, stuffed with cotton balls, for the bed and chairs. It was simple, but it was my dream house in every possible way.

I spent hours kneeling in front of that dollhouse. I modified an old Avon pin to create a door knocker, and built a mailbox from a dental floss container. I made tiny picture frames filled with real pictures to hang on the walls. I crafted miniature food items, and staged them on the narrow kitchen counters. I dressed my Barbies and posed them throughout the house in scenes of domestic bliss. Everything down to the last detail was just right. I made sure of it.

Years passed, and sadly the dollhouse was left on the other side of the Atlantic to another deserving little girl. But I never forgot it.

My daughter was nearly five when I first dreamed of recreating the magic of my dollhouse for her. For weeks, I spent the evenings kneeling on the basement floor gluing and painting the wooden pieces. Her dollhouse was far more elaborate, with an additional floor and real (well, plastic) glass in the windows. I painted the siding soft blue and covered the roof in real wooden shingles. Inside, each room was papered in patterned scrapbook paper—a luxury my childhood abroad had never afforded. There were pink florals in the bedroom, simple gingham checks in the kitchen, and tiny anchors on navy blue in the bathroom. I filled window boxes with tiny silk flowers and created hanging plants to dangle from the two-story balconies. Lace curtains, much like those that had flounced in the windows of my dollhouse, framed each little window. It was truly perfect.

While I worked, I found myself dreaming about how my daughter would use this dollhouse. I imagined her kneeling in front of it much like I had, adding accessories and staging scenes in the pretty rooms. I thought about all the things we could make together to add special touches to her dream house. It would be beautiful.

Right from the beginning, though, my daughter was different. She admired all of the pretty things in the rooms, oohing and aahing over the colors and the florals and the tiny details. And then they seemed to fade into the background, eclipsed by the miniature animal families we had bought to live in the spaces.

From day one, it seemed, all of the rooms I had carefully created became a mess of furry animals and makeshift beds. The bedroom floors were littered with scraps of fabric and fleece tucked carefully over sleeping baby creatures. Adult bunnies and cats perched in armchairs cradling baby chipmunks and mice. The kitchen overflowed with animals crammed in next to one another, and spilled out onto picnic blankets on the floor that brimmed with miniature food. It was chaos. Messy, hodge-podge chaos.

I struggled to look at the house. I had spent so many hours getting every detail right, and it seemed to have been a wasted effort. Her play was messy and cluttered and anything but the elegant, calm experience I had imagined.

Her Christmas and birthday lists never included cute accessories or fancy furniture pieces. Instead, they were filled with requests for more animal families and, always, for more beds.

At some point, I began to look more closely at the scenes she was staging. A nurse bunny lingered protectively at the bedside of a tiny mouse—sick, I was informed, with a high fever. In an upstairs room, seven or eight tiny animal children slept on their makeshift beds while the mother cat read to them from a miniature book. They had been adopted, she told me, and this was their first night in their new home. Downstairs, an elderly rabbit lay on the tiny green couch under a blanket I had knit, watching the dancing flames of the fireplace. He needed a place to stay after his home was destroyed, and his couch surfing had brought him to this house. Of course, he had met a warm reception here. An entire menagerie of animals—rabbits, red pandas, cows, and puppies—bordered the edges of a picnic blanket that was spread with every kind of delicious food. They were celebrating an anniversary. The father cat and mother dog had been married for five years.

It began to dawn on me that the way my daughter played was far more meaningful than anything I had done as a child. Her dollhouse was chaotic and a little messy, but it overflowed with hospitality and love. It had become a place where a couch surfing, down-on-his-luck rabbit would be welcomed with open arms. Where no expense was spared to feed a fellow hungry creature. Where diversity was celebrated. Where there was always room for another soul under the roof.

My daughter got it right.

I left off with my dreams of hours spent creating perfect scenes of domestic bliss. They seemed empty and shallow, somehow. Instead, I started dreaming bigger dreams—far better dreams. I imagine her real house, the home she’ll create in the years to come. I doubt it will be magazine-worthy. It will probably be a little messy. But I dream of a home that overflows with love, that extends a warm welcome to anyone in need, that throws open its doors and its heart and wraps its inhabitants in unconditional welcome.

It will be perfectly beautiful. She will make sure of it.