My dad is a carpenter, and in 1986 we built my dollhouse, patterned after a Greenleaf Garfield house (with a few alterations). I decided to make him an old fashioned carpentry shop for Christmas. I thought it would remind him of the fun time we had building my dollhouse together.

It took a while to collect everything, and to find an appropriate sized antique shotgun shell box to build the room in. I then made a replica of my dollhouse in approximately 1/144" scale. I took measurements from my dollhouse and drew up the plans on 1/8" graph paper. The house is made from tiny wood clapboard siding and there is also fishscale shingles on the roof.

I also love rocking horses so I decided to include one as another in-progress project. Most of the tools are by Sir Thomas Thumb and the rocking horse is by Karen Lowe. The blueprints I found in a house plan book. I reduced the house drawings on a color copier, made it a negative and then changed the background to blue.

There's even tiny spiderwebs in the roombox that a very accommodating little spider put there for me. My Dad just loved it when he received it. Now, every time I need to borrow it to display somewhere, he always reminds me
"Be careful with that!". I just laugh and remind him that "I will, I made it remember?"

I displayed the roombox at the Chicago Spring Fling Dollhouse and Miniatures Show & Sale. I received Best in Show, 1st Place in the Roombox Division, and also 2nd Place in the People's Choice.

A closer look at the left side.
Most of the tools and accessories are by Sir Thomas Thumb.

I also love rocking horses, so I had to put one of those in there too.

The back wall without the dollhouse.

A closeup of the back wall.

I aged the walls, beams and floors with a wire brush.
I put in a light behind the door to simulate the daylight outside and
also to get more light to the back of the room.

Here's a closeup of the 144th scale house I made. I put a cat in the window
because my cat Niki liked to sit in my dollhouse. Check out the pictures
of my "big" dollhouse to see real pictures of her inWillow Bay Manor
.

Another closeup of the little house.
There are even tiny fish scale shingles on the roof.

The back side of the house.

The side of the house.