My Favorite Toy
Kelsey Chew
When I was seven and being home-schooled in California, a crisis happened in our family. Our family had decided to move and had put our house up for sale, but two days after the house was supposed to close, the buyer decided not to buy it. We were stunned. We had put everything in storage-the television set, the stereo, the computer, our toys, and even our Christmas presents. My mother had closed her art gallery, and my father only worked part-time, so there was little income. We did not know when the house would actually sell, so we left everything in storage except for very few things. As we foraged though three packed storage units to ferret out essential items, we decided to make something out of the packing boxes-a dollhouse-and it became my favorite toy.
My mom, my sister and I stacked and glued three empty apple boxes together and then glued three more on top of them to create two-stories. We did the same thing to the back and ended up with a twelve room mansion. To make the roof, we gathered several pinecones from the yard and cut them apart, petal by petal. Then, we glued the pinecone petals onto two large pieces of cardboard and attached them to the open tops of the upper boxes using an extra triangle of cardboard at the sides to create a gabled roof.
After the rooms of the dollhouse were in place, my mom, my sister and I systematically decorated each room in detail, just like a normal house would have been decorated. There was a kitchen, living room, dining room, family room, library, garden room, bathroom, laundry room, and four bedrooms. We made almost everything by hand with items from the yard, trash, or thrift store. The kitchen sinks were made out of half egg shells set in cardboard countertops that we painted white. The fireplace was made from pebbles that we picked up from the creek in our backyard and glued to the cardboard wall in the shape of the fireplace. The garden room was decorated with dried flowers that we picked and hung from a chain as if drying. The laundry baskets were made out of the little plastic things that strawberries come in and pottery vases from Indian beads that we glued together. We learned about stenciling, and stenciled our first stencil on the floor of the gardening room. Other floors were painted or had placemat carpets from the thrift store. All the while, my mom talked to us about sizes and proportions of things (spatiality), which items might fit where, and different, creative ways of seeing things. Each addition to the dollhouse was accompanied by lots of discussion and it often involved learning about adhesive, paint, or some new craft technique.
Building the dollhouse took about nine months (the same amount of time that it took the house to sell), so I actually ended up with little time in California to play with the miniature dolls that we purchased. As we moved cross-country to Virginia, the dollhouse carefully came with us, and we stopped in each state to buy a single, tiny memento that just seemed to fit perfectly into some room in the house. It was one of the first things unpacked, and we set it up in a small alcove in our new house. Today, though the dollhouse is now in a closet, our family still calls the room where it used to sit, “The Dollhouse Room.” Since we had worked so hard on it, my sister and I have always been very gentle with it and protective of it. We used to position the dolls in the dollhouse and pretend that the mother was cooking in the kitchen, the father was reading in the library, and the two children were playing with the cat in one of the four bedrooms. We would reposition the dolls and make up about new stories, but mostly we just admired it. It stayed set-up for five years and is one of the most memorable parts of my childhood.
Making and playing with this dollhouse has affected me in several ways. It taught me to appreciate the people around me as well as the little things in life. Being aware of the circumstances that led to its creation also made me more aware of what was really important in life. Looking back, I admire my mother’s creativity with the apple boxes and the way the dollhouse became a toy, a teaching tool, and cheap entertainment all at the same time. We had no other toys or television for over a year. During the long hours spent with my mother, my sister and I developed a keen awareness of the seriousness of the situation, and we both became more mature and helpful. The real-life house and its importance to our well-being became a factor in our perception and awareness of our surroundings. I think that few children have ever paid attention to the details of a couch, or table, or woodstove, or kitchen sink at such an early age. This undivided time with my mother, and the creation of a treasured heirloom, certainly helped stimulate my imagination and creativity and also helped me gain confidence in myself and my abilities.