Kaleidoscope Home Tour

The Kaleidoscope House was the brainchild of architect, Peter Wheelwright, and artist/photographer, Laurie Simmons, and produced by Bozart Toys 2001/2002. I'm sure everyone is familiar with this shot, but for those who don't own one, or who are contemplating buying one, I wanted to take you on a little tour. So here it is out of the box in all of its glory.



The front door opens to a salon/foyer/dining room/lounge (depends on whose photos you're looking at). The left pink side wall is fixed, but the front has a sliding panel. If we go upstairs we find two bedrooms and connected by a Brady Bunch bathroom.



The room on the left, directly above the entrance, has purple umbrella wallpaper. If you climb the ladder you can see through the attic/crawl space/yellow skylight over staircase to the other room. The yellow wall on the front of the house is fixed to the frame, and the side panel slides for access. Through the open door is the bathroom, then second bedroom.



Walking back through the hallway, we reach the sailboat bedroom that is the exact same size as the umbrella bedroom. It also has the same fixed yellow wall in front and sliding panel on the side.



The Brady Bunch style shared bathroom that connects the two bedrooms, is about the size of a postage stamp. The Kaleidoscope House bathroom set is not 1:12 scale and barely fits in this bathroom. At best, it's a half bath with room for a sink and toilet but no tub or shower. In almost every K House I've seen the owner has opted to renovate one of the upstairs bedrooms into a bathroom, and use this for a closet/office/reading room. (I will post another time on the Kaleidoscope House accessories and furniture, but there is a great post on minimodern.blogspot.com about the bedroom sets and house notes.)



Heading back downstairs the great room has a floor to ceiling red fireplace with blue and pink fixed walls flanking it on the back. The upper level side walls are fixed but the lower side wall panels slide open for access. There is also a battery operated dome light under the balcony hallway.



The house does come with this oddly sized kitchen. If you line up one end with one doorway, it protrudes into the other doorway. The island is shorter but a little bit taller, and they both have a slight lean to them. The flooring on the lower level is grey with some interesting blue speckled stickers in the great room and the next room. The upstairs floors are white.



The last room has a fixed interior purple wall, but shares sliding panels with great room and entrance. I've seen this room used beautifully as an outdoor terrace space, but also as dining room/TV room/garage.



The roof has a rectangular skylight that runs the width of the house. The white plastic will eventually turn yellow with age, nothing you can do about that. The blue curved roof has a skylight above the staircase. Mine is warped so it just rests on the support posts and doesn't snap in place. Which is fine by me, because I remove it to take photos anyway, but if you are buying one, you may want to ask.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the tour. Next post will have furniture.

(Top image from Museum of Childhood which also has a rotational video of the Kaleidoscope House. All other images are mine which display my lack of photography skills. )

Home Inspection

So, yes, I bought my KHouse back in December and have posted on it, twice. Sorry! We currently live in a 2 bedroom and the only space we had for it was on top of our dresser. It seemed like a good idea at the time, except the baby is still in our room, and the only time I can work on it is when she's asleep. Well, my better half helped me lug it into the kitchen, and for the past two days it has enveloped half of our table. I don't know how long this will last, but brace yourself, the tour begins...

I've been dreaming of owning a Kaleidoscope House since I first spied it on Modern MC's blog minimodern.blogspot.com back in August 2007. Three Christmas's later, this gem made it under my tree. Here it is in its entirety spread out on our living room floor. Sadly, in transit one of the plastic corner panels broke, and the prongs that snap the frame together had broken off. The ebay seller kindly offered to fix it, but I opted for a quick trip to TAP Plastics for glue and assembled it the next day after the glue dried.

Here it is as a pile of plastic and two hours later after my husband helped me assemble it. I was really surprised with the quality and ease of assembly. Next stop, tour.

Haute Dollhouse by Michael Williams

The other day CallSmall used some Barbie vases by Jonathan Adler which reminded me that I never posted these pictures... Michael Williams, MAWphoto.com, inspired by the Jonathan Adler catalogue built these dioramas, some of which were published in Haute Doll Magazine May/June 2009 issue. Barbie manages to score all of the cool modern stuff, but seriously, I wish my dollhouse looked like this.


The "OOAK Jonathan Adler diorama" features dining & living room furniture by Randall Craig Home (I blogged about this collection here) with custom cushions by Kolkman Kreations. I love the mirrored starbursts on wall which are Christmas ornaments Michael found at Hobby Lobby.


Of course I love the "Black & White Living Room", the wallpaper is fabulous and I love the use of beads as accessories on the shelf below the china.


In the "RED, WHITE & BLUE living room" you'll recognize the Kaleidoscope Dollhouse and Re-Ment accessories on the IKEA dollhouse bookcase and tables.


The "LIGHT BLUE CIRCLES living room" has to be my favorite. I am a sucker for shiny objects. The George Nelson-style wall clock is made of metal ring, foam core circle, push pins and paper cutout hands. Be sure to check out all of the photos on Michael's flickr page as they have credits for where he found all of these goodies.

(all images from mawphoto.com Barbie Loves Jonathan Adler! flickr set and mawphoto.com on flickriver)

Haus Mid Century (mini)

Looks like LBrandt has another mini mini up in her Esty shop. The the last two sold for $90 and $50. I'm guessing she'll keep building new ones when this sells.

Haus Mid Century is selling for $40, and has a tar and gravel roof top consistent with the 50's homes and walnut walls. This version took 4 hours to make.

(images from LBrandt's Etsy shop)

Brinca Dada - Emerson House

Are you kidding me!?!? Have you seen this modern and eco-friendly dollhouse by Brinca Dada? Of course you have, it was all the buzz last month, but that's what I get for tuning out for the past few months. CallSmall blogged a great post with links to all of the other posts on this house plus more information from one of the heads of the company, Doug Rollins read more here.

The Emerson House by Brinca Dada will be available in June 2010. They are currently taking pre-orders for $299!

Description from their website brincadada.com:
"Newly listed, the Emerson House is the perfect home for the modern family. The home has six rooms including a living room, kitchen, library/office, master bedroom, bathroom and child's bedroom. With its large, open floor plan and floor-to-ceiling windows, the Emerson House enjoys year-round sunlight. The modern house features many extras including mitered-glass corners, two fireplaces, sliding glass doors, solar panels, and recessed LED lights. Finally, the house is easy on the environment with only non-toxic and lead-free wood stains and paints."



Brinca Dada also has a line of living room furniture that will be coming this spring. I am in love with their chairs and couch.

"A beautiful house deserves beautiful furniture. This living room set creates the perfect atmosphere for entertaining guests, reading a good book or relaxing with family. The set features eleven pieces including TV console, lamps, HD television, sofa, chairs, coffee table, console, side table and rug. Thank heavens for little luxuries."


(all image from brincadada.com)

Keep the emails coming

I just wanted to say thanks for all of the emails, tips and comments! I do read them even though I disappear frequently, I will be blogging more soon. Eventually, I will get my backlog of photos up on this blog. I randomly have only blogged 33 posts a year, I plan to break that this year. Between the kids, work and volunteer obligations, I haven't been able to find the time finish the KHouse, but here is a sneak peak of one of the rooms I'm working on. Room details to come in next post. To be continued...

Steve Beebe's Minis

The amount of detail that goes into Steve Beebe's miniatures absolutely amazes me. He loves crafting these Lloyd Wright style houses in various forms. If you are interested in a version of this house, Steve has offered to craft you one for $95 (basically a wholesale price). It would include furnishings. You can request a house that has furniture glued into place, or a packet of loose furnishings. Contact Steve and mention you saw this offer on this blog; his email is on his website stevebeebe.com.

Steve also does custom order work and has dozens of ideas for modern miniatures but hasn't crafted them yet because he hasn't found a way to reach the buyers. He loves to craft anything from the Frank LLoyd Wright style to Mid Century and current modern. Not to mention pop-cultural 60's and 70's. He currently has a model of Aristotle Onassis' yacht that's sized to fit one inch (or half inch) rooms. But the buyer would have to either like various boats or just happen to have a 60's era room that could use a conversation piece. He'd like to craft more modern yacht models to fit doll houses.

These two miniature model railroads are crafted in the style of a theme park are truly impressive. I think I would go blind trying to build these myself.

Steve is always looking to craft more FLW in 1/144 and micro sizes. As well as other modern house designs. Another idea is modern architectural models for dollhouse rooms. And 60's and 70's shadow boxes sized to fit in one inch dollhouse rooms.

Please keep the photos coming Steve, I love to see (and share) your work.

(all images courtesy of Steve Beebe's)

Studio SWS

Over in the land down under, Small Worlds Sculptures has moved to Studio SWS. I am waiting with baited breath to see more photos of their Duesbury Miniature House that they will be selling along with a small range of modern furniture.

The Maison de Plasique made of colored and clear Acrylic is available for $750. The house is inspired by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. His 1950s Farnsworth House is one of the houses I would like to build a miniature of. It's on my list.

Mahesha and Amrita also make a variety of cool Acrylic chairs. This table and chair set is my favorite, and sells for $45. Check out all of their stuff at studio-sws.blogspot.com.

(all images from Studio SWS)

Janine Rewell painted dollhouse

In one of my dream dollhouses I will have a black and white room, eventually. I stumbled across this painted room by Janine Rewell who is a Helsinki-based freelancing illustrator and graphic designer. I've had such a hard time finding wallpaper that I love, that I might just skip it and try paint, although it will probably not look as cool as this.

(image from janinerewell.com)

Modern MC finds the best stuff!

LBrandt's Etsy shop has two really cool mini mini houses. I had stumbled across this Etsy shop and saw the miniGarden dwellings with the mini Eames and Wegner designer chairs, but thankfully Modern MC sent me the links to these beauties. Thanks for the great tip!

The New Century measures 4 x 1.5 x 1" and is selling for $90.

Habitat Modern measures 2 x 1 .25 x 1" and is selling for $50.

Oese, I'm guessing you'll love these and may be inspired to make your own. I've been interested in trying to make something similar myself, but as LBrandt says in the descriptions, the larger house took 10 hours and the smaller house 4 hours. Based on the lack of posts, you can imagine I barely have an extra 10 minutes to post these days, so I don't think I'll be building my own very soon. One can always dream though.

(images from LBrandt's Etsy shop)