I wish this beautiful room were a room in my house, but it's not. Since these bits and pieces are all 12:1" scale dollhouse miniatures, at the very least I wish they filled a room in my dollhouse, but they don't. These, as are all my best shabby chic miniature re-dos, are listed for sale via eBay starting tonight, (we're on Thursday for those who are a little behind--it's okay, it happens). I have been working on this lot, incrementally, and I do mean teeny tiny increments, for the better part of a year. Once upon a time, I introduced a collection like this once a month. Once a month! And they all sold! For ridiculous money! I was the original "it" girl when it came to turning wooden dollhouse furniture into their shabby chic human size counterparts. It was all my idea and I was the Queen of shabby chic miniature decor on eBay for two or three years.



This is a picture from a magazine which I have loved and cherished and used as inspiration for the new collection. The picture is all wrinkled and ripped because my then 18 month old really loved this picture, too, so much so that he tried to get it in his mouth. I was just in time to rescue it so that I could use it five years later as inspiration for this collection. Sooooo, the two pictures, mine and the magazine pic, aren't exactly the same. They aren't even really very close--but inspiration isn't about duplication, it is about interpretation. And even though my stuff isn't nearly as elegant, I do have a mirror that is about as tall and almost half as beautiful in this collection, only I failed to get a really good picture of it. Such is life.

This is what I call a French chest but I listed it on eBay as a sideboard. I didn't want to be too controversial. This one came together at the last minute and really surprised me by how, well, how French it all is. This is one of those things that I won't cry over if it doesn't sell.

See how nice it looks in the over-all setting? The knobs, which are beads from an antique necklace (it broke--what can I say?) are a little on the large side, but so are the French. That is, I mean to say, they, the French, are larger than life. In fact, I hear that the French women are all very thin. They achieve this, I have heard, by eating cheese. This is their official position--but, when pressed, they admit to eating only about one square inch of cheese per day. And they claim to be French?!?!?

This is another one of my favorites. I love it to death but I hope it sells because I don't have a place for it in my dollhouse. Dollhouses, I have found, are a lot like real houses. Space is finite, no matter the dimensions. Also, angles and architecture are what they are, whether big or small. My shabby chic style dollhouse just can't accomodate this. My Victorian dollhouse can't either. Metal folding tables are a bit modern, though I understand the Victorians had wooden ones. See! Read my blog and learn many fascinating things each and every day.

I love this one, too. I would happily put it in my dollhouse. I do have another like this which I plan to cover in an even more beloved (by me) fabric for my DH living room. This was a tough job because the chair had to be totally taken apart, recovered and glued back together. Phew! I thought I would never get this looking right. I won't do stripes again, that's for sure!

Here's a view that shows how well casual metal folding chairs do in a more formal setting. There they are, right next to the most formal piece in the "room". Casual elegance is what it's all about.

See how this human sized room (as I fondly call the dimension in which we live) pairs a painted distressed table with a French pierpoint mirror? See the silk rug and the loose sofa cover juxtaposed against one another? The garden urn and the crystal chandelier? That's what it's all about. Sadly, it's a style that is on its way out which is one reason why I don't re-do and sell a collection of shabby chic dollhouse furniture every month anymore. Dollhouse trends seem to follow the human home trends . . .

Still, I would love to live in this room. Wait a minute! I do have a white covered sofa, a white painted distressed coffee table sitting on a rose strewn rug, a white painted chest, a white fireplace . . . Wow! I guess that is a lesson to me to appreciate what I have. Click on either my eBay or CDHM link to the right to view all my little pretties in this collection.