My Beacon Hill

Welcome

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Welcome to a the virtual tour of my Beacon Hill Dollhouse. You will be able to read all about the dollhouse on this tour. You can browse each room by clicking the links to the left.

Meet Madeline the owner of the house. She is a very private lady that comes from a small family. Her mother passed away when she was a still a child and her father is a captain of one of the ocean liners of the White Star Line company. Madeline has one older sister, Laurel. She is single, very shy and quite delicate. She went to the best private schools so she is very well educated and she has plenty of etiquette.

The year is 1913 and Madeline’s world is rapidly changing around her. Natural disasters took their toll on the United States with the Ohio floods, California’s record breaking high temperatures and the Great Lakes Storm. Art is changing with the September Mom painting controversy and for the first time an income tax is imposed by the federal government. Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line, changing transportation forever and the modern zipper is invented, changing our garments forever. Gandhi is changing the world and Harriet Tubman dies but Rosa Parks is born.

Yes, this year will be one to remember, especially for Madeline. It’s the year she moves into the house of her dreams.

The Exterior

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The Beacon Hill is one of the most beautiful dollhouses ever made. This is a die cut 1/8"th plywood dollhouse by Greenleaf. It is quite a large house with plenty of interior space and a lot of rooms.

This house has a lot of features. There’s a winding staircase, a French door, dormer windows, tower, bays and a mansard roof. There is also a cellar window, double paneled door and shutters. This house comes with all the siding and shingles included in the kit.

I built my Beacon Hill with no special tools. Its completely hand sanded and painted. I used wood and tacky glue to put it together. I added a little flair to mines by adding the wooden butterfly details to the bays and a bee to the chimney. I painted them with a toothpick. I also vamped up the silk screened windows by adding little flowers in the diamond designs.

I added my siding and shingles before putting on the windows, doors and trim. The smoke coming out of the chimney is cotton. I added my own gingerbread trim around the roof edges of the tower and mansards. I left my tower removable but it can be glued on permanently.I chose earth tones to paint the house but used the electric blue as a nice accent color.

I added a 1913 Ford Model T to the landscape display.

The Interior

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I used Chrysnbon furniture and accessories kits for the entire house. You can bash Chrysnbon kits together to make all kinds of furniture for just about every room in a dollhouse but I bought ready made furniture for the bedroom and parlor.

For the bedroom I liked that particular bedroom set because it came with the vanity and the wardrobe has a unique drop down door in the middle that gives it an antique feel. I changed the bedding and made my own to make it Victorian. I also upholstered the vanity chair to match.

In the parlor I chose this set because of the gaudy colors. Victorian times were known for the bright, tacky colors so the parlor had to have to some of that flamboyancy.

I love the Chrysnbon kits for the kitchen, especially since this kitchen happens to be small. Chrysnbon kits are very true to scale so you can really make the most out of your room if space is an issue. I love the cook stove the best.

The Victorian bathroom kit is great because it comes with a lot of extras and the size is just right. I added the Chrysnbon bathroom accessories as well. Putting the kit together is part of the fun.

I decorated the house to appear like it doesn’t have electricity and candle chandeliers, gas lamps and candle sconces are the only forms of lighting. There are also wood burning stoves in the rooms that don’t have fireplaces for heat.

The round floor decorations are not to be rugs but rather wood inlays which I printed from the internet, applied to the floors and then varnished over them.

All of the wallpaper in this house is from the MiniGraphics country French collection which I had to special order so I can have all the patterns.

The curtains are made from lace ribbon and decorated on the corners with decorative buttons. I made the crown molding from fabric ribbon as well. This kind of braided ribbon can be painted over but I didn’t want to take away the sheen the fabric has so I left it as is in this house.

The Sewing Room

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Madeline sells her fancy detailed embroidery but she likes to sew for herself.

She loves making her own dresses and many times she buys hats and dresses that are a bit plain, at very good prices, and she embellishes them herself so they are completely unique with her sewing machine.

Her sewing room is also used as attic space and she keeps some luggage up here. After all, she never knows when she will be invited on one of her fathers voyages. She also has some porcelian dolls which she sews clothing for often.

The Writing Room

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Madeline writes fine hand written letters in her writing room.

She enjoys being able to tell her father all of the exciting new things that are happening in New York City while hes been away at sea, like the newly rebuilt Grand Central Station. She is is just dreaming of the day she will be able to take a train trip from there. She loves to create her own beautiful holiday cards, invitations and receipts for her embroidered items here as well.

Madeline loves the natural light that the tower provides in this room.

The Embroidery Room

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In this room Madeline makes her beautiful embroidery work. She makes wedding dresses and nursery items and plenty of people around town hire her because of her attention to detail.

She is now working on some cushions that a wealthy family needs for their new parlor room decor.

The Chamber

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Madeline loves the opera and she has her opera set on the night table.

She also loves her blue hat for parties and fine leather gloves. She is also loves powders, perfumes and make up.

She sewed her own bedding with the fabrics and laces that she likes to buy and keep for different projects.

The Craft Room

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In the craft room is where Madeline spends her time being creative. She loves her home so she had a dollhouse replica made of it and she loves decorating it. She already filled it with a plenty of furniture.

Madeline also loves her paper doll collections and she usually always searches behind coffee cans and cookie boxes for new ones that she can cut out.

She is also preparing a very nice mask for the new years gala she was invited to at the Waldorf Hotel. She's excited about making everything perfect for the coming of 1914. She's even heard through the grapevine that there might even be dancing allowed at the parties this year!

Madeline has also been trying her hand at painting and she’s doing a very good job. She’s making a very nice portrait of her home which she plans to hang in the parlor once done.

The Bathroom

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In this room Madeline enjoys running water and she loves taking long baths in her claw foot tub.

She keeps a basket of toiletries handy so she can move them from her bedroom to the bathroom with ease.

The Parlor

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Madeline has some more of her blue decorated vases displayed in the what-not stand of this room. She loves showing off her red parlor lamp and her phonograph which she has quite a collection of records for. She also likes to play her pump organ for visitors and her violin. She absolutely loves music.

She likes to show her friends that she is a very modern lady by showing off her camera and taking pictures of her friends which they spend hours marveling over. The entertainment doesn’t end there because she also likes to spend time using her stereoscope with her friends and trading images with them. Of course when shes not sharing in such modern pleasures, there is always time for some good old conversation like all of the wonderful art they recently saw at the Armory Show.

Not many people had a phone these days but Madeline has a phone and she loves to let her friends use it. Having the fireplace running all of the time can make a lady quite flushed so Madeline keeps her hand fan available at all times.

The parlor also shows more signs of how much Madeline likes to entertain and go about town. She has some tickets on the coffee table to the Ziegfeld Follies but she also likes to go to a Vaudeville Variety Show every now and then.

The Dining Room

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Madeline loves to entertain so she has lovely pastries ready to offer her friends who come over often. She also likes to prepare a beautiful dining table.

Madeline’s father always brings back Madeline a souvenir from his travels and since he knows she loves blue porcelain, he has brought her plenty of it for her to put around her house. She has quite a collection of blue vases to display. After the terrible sinking of the Titanic last year, her father was unsure what would happen with his career because of all the bad publicity the company was receiving but fortunately he was not relieved of his duties and the company perservered.

The foyer is pretty close by and Madeline keeps an extra parasol and her change purse here because she is just waiting for the day she gets to go to the newly opened Woolworth's to window shop and maybe spend a little something.

The Kitchen

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Madeline doesn’t have to worry about carrying so much wood for her stoves, she has a very good beau who helps her with that.

She loves to cook different recipes she gets from her friends and some that she creates herself with different exotic ingredients she finds on her long days out shopping. She likes to prepare goodies for when she and her sister Laurel drive to the Orchid Tea House to meet with their friends.

Madeline loves having many fragrant spices, many of them to given to her by her father, that she keeps in her spice cabinets.