Retro Lake House Tour Concludes

Back in tha' day: when visiting my grandmother's house as a little girl, my mom
and aunts bathed the youngest children (including me) in a washtub like this one.

Let it rain...

The Retro Lake House tour concludes with the most private space, the outdoor shower and bathing area.  Ironic no? bathing outdoors. Hope you enjoyed the walk-through as much as I enjoyed creating this space.  Thanks so much for all of your kind and enthusiastic comments on the other lake house/I'm a Giant posts.  The feedback was so encouraging.

Details: rain shower head and faucet by ELF miniatures; metal tub and mirror from local craft store; mirror frame is metal lid of seamless tin from The Container Store; screen and towel holder are Rement.

Retro Lake House Tour Continues

The main space of the house is for eating, lounging, reading, sleeping, TV watching and more.  The sheep skin rug and floor cushions make it comfortable for sitting around the coffee table or looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows to gaze at the lake. How tranquil is that? We aren't totally cut off while here at the lake, there's a phone and the antique TV.  There's loads of natural light inside during the day, but a paper lantern style pendant gives enough light when the sun sets. Let's take a closer look...

The television is on. (Oh no! nothing but static.)

Corner Kitchen: a bar size refrigerator sits atop
 a cabinet holding kitchen supplies.

The wood burning fireplace doubles as the kitchen oven 
except on the days when we grill over the fire pit outside.

Details:  wood sculpture is PRD miniatures; red cabinet is Mighty World; coffee cups, overhead light, refrigerator and telephone are Rement; wall mirror, coffee table components and bowl are craft supplies from Michael's; white rug, pitcher and red books are Dolls House Emporium; TV is keychain charm made by Kikkerland; yellow book, vases, bed and floor cushions are Kaleidoscope House; neck rolls are handmade by me.

Welcome to the Retro Lake House

Welcome to my Retro Lake House.  The first room we'll be touring is outdoors. (The outdoor space is as important as the indoor space with this structure and I really love that). We southerners love sitting on the front porch, even when there is no porch. The Rietveld chair is the perfect perch for people watching and enjoying an evening fire. The address is Lakeview Way because we're right on the lake. Looking over at the zen garden is so peaceful. It has been modified. In addition to pebbles, we've placed a large round sculpture in yellow, of course.  Everything rests upon gravel rather than sand (simply because it doesn't make a mess).   

Come a little closer. A glance through the door reveals a cozy daybed and two generous floor cushions. A mirror topped coffee table holds a collection of seashells.  Beside the sofa, a crate of books sits in front of the very old black and white TV. (It's a real antique but don't laugh sometimes you need the news, right?) Well, that's all for now. Sorry, only the family dog is home.  We're out on the lake. Gone fishin.' 


Details: chair, ReacJapan; yellow sculpture is a miniature letter 'o' from Barnes & Noble; miniature zen garden kit also from Barnes & Noble; firepit is a condiment bowl from Ikea with four mighty magnets from The Container Store; sign, coffee table components and bowl are craft supplies from Michael's; white rug and red books are Dolls House Emporium; TV is keychain charm made by Kikkerland; yellow book, vase, bed and floor cushions are Kaleidoscope house; neck rolls are handmade by me.

Color - Schemes & Backstory

Transforming the Neville House into the Retro Lake House involved a serious design decision. In the last post, I shared materials I had purchased for this project.  Ultimately, I left the wood surfaces unfinished.  The structure itself prevented good access that would allow me to do a top rate job covering or painting the interiors.  Without a second house, I didn't want any decor to be irreversible. Besides, the wood is just too fabulous!  I may give it a clear wax coat down the line, but for now the wood shall remain naked unfinished.  With that decided, here's how the rest of the design emerged.

The yellow fireplace got me thinking about a color scheme. Since its style is straight out of the 1970's maybe just go with it. I then looked for materials that were from or felt like they were from that decade. I went all out with the yellow and grey and came up with an inspiration board. It felt more modern than yellow and black.  

But, as I began selecting furniture to work in this small space, a new co-star and complement to the groovy fireplace emerged.

So it was in with the Rietveld chair and out with the grey. New color scheme? Why, all the colors of the chair, of course.


Every mini home becomes easier to design and outfit with a backstory, right? The wall of windows screamed, "setting with a wonderful view".  To me, wonderful view is almost always synonymous with a body of water.  But this Asian-influenced design didn't strike me as a beach property.  Then, it came to me...a lake.  A vacation property, a weekend home...but just how luxurious or stark would it be? I came up with this mood...

I'm A Giant Wannabe

Emily Henderson's Famous Dollhouse Challenge

I know, I know the audacity of me to launch into this series of posts and associate them with the famous and now defunct apparently ended dollhouse challenge.  But alas, this is a true story and maybe Mini Dork wouldn't mind adding this wannabe me to her Giant Roll Call. *wink, wink* There appear to be no prizes at stake, so friends give me some latitude, okay? *Wry grin from ear to ear.* 


With the launch of the I'm A Giant Dollhouse Challenge last fall (I didn't stumble on it until mid-October), I was motivated to finally remove my Neville House from its box.  It had been sitting in my craft room for months, waiting for me to clear away a space to set it up and give it some design attention.  At that point, I had not done anything with my dollhouse miniatures for some time because play-scale dioramas had been getting all of my attention. 

my first adult dollhouse purchase, the Neville House from CB2

Never-the-less, I got all sorts of ideas, thinking the challenge was just what I needed. But I still wasn't committed to blogging about this hobby of mine...maybe I'd document the updates on Flickr.  I was so moved, I hopped online to Miniatures.com and purchased some materials...flagstone flooring paper, tin roofing material, and wood wall paneling.

Perhaps, the Neville House should really be tricked out!?   But alas, the more I cruised the other participant's websites to enjoy their updates, the more intimidated I became.  People were doing scratch-builds and working with large multi-room homes. My house was just a shack okay a well designed studio, but one room nonetheless.  Then, I check out my regular blogger hangouts only to find over-the-top creativity in the form of unconventional structures.  Dazzling! So my inertia won out, partially. I just decided to continue being a stalker.  However, I did follow through with creating what I think is a nice design for this beautiful architect's model dollhouse. Allow me to share just how the Neville became the Retro Lake House. More to come...