SCORE!

One of my favorite lines from a movie is, "I just can't help myself." (Name that movie.) I just can't help myself. I bought another dollhouse. But, in my defense, this one is unlike any of the others I've bought before. Yes, there have been several - mostly adorable Fisher Price things a little one can carry in one hand by the built-in handle on top, which have been played with aplenty. There is also a Dora's Casa in my study/toy room. But this one - this one is different. It has cedar shakes, and wood plank siding, twin dormers, a staircase with a landing halfway up, 6 rooms, and I can just imagine some grampa somewhere painstakingly cutting and gluing each tiny piece. 
I can imagine this because I watched it happen over a period of several years. My father-in-law, Kenny Adams, one great man, built one of these for his first granddaughter, Heather. He made all the furniture by hand, he glued every shingle by hand, he wired the lights in each room by hand. He worked on it for years - so many years that Heather was w-a-y too old to want to play with it by the time he was done (was he ever really done with it? IDK). He had other, littler granddaughters, but the house was so fine, and the furniture was so fiddly, that the little ones, the ones who WANTED to play with it, weren't allowed. Something might get broken, and that, I guess, would not have been fair to future little girls who wanted to play with it. Wait...what?
So, I stopped by the thrift store on my way home from Bible study today, and made a beeline for the back room, where they keep the items too big to display on the shelves out front. The 'furniture' room, which is just what I was looking for: a nightstand with 3 drawers, that needed some paint, and maybe some new hardware. I know just what it looks like - in fact, I saw it on Centsational Girl's website the other day (see it here.)
No nightstand, but I spotted this:

It's BIG...30h x 36w x 15d big. It's beautiful, it's rustic, it's Colonial, yet with a log cabin-ish feel. And it is not too fine to be played with. It needed a few minor repairs. I am still working on the bed in my garage (waiting for the weather to go below 90°F), so I still had my compressor and brad nailer hooked up, & wood glue on the table, so it is glued up, bradded and clamped as I speak type. I have to get it upstairs to the granddaughters' bedroom, onto the little rolling TV cart that is perfect for it (so that both sides of it can be seen), before the hubby gets home and gives me THAT look for buying another dollhouse, even though I only paid $15 for it, and it came with all the furniture & accoutrements! By the time he notices it, it will have been played with for several weeks. Heh, heh. Oh, boy...I can't wait to see Juju's face when she sees it.

Luring Grandkids to Grammie's House

I don't know where this idea came from...I saw it on Pinterest and couldn't get the original source to open (it was a Spanish site - all I know.) But I LOVE the idea. I corrected the color a bit, from the overall yellow of the original. Gotta do this!