First forays into the property market...

in Hazelton!

I have a fair few dolls' house kits, as well as the couple in my craft shed that are half-built, and now that the shed is finished I decided it was high time to get working.  I thought I'd ease myself in gently with a spot of kit-bashing LOL

Obviously I can't do all this on my own, so here is the gang who are going to be working with me 😉  From the left we have: Albert Holland (very rarely seen without his trusty hammer in his pocket!), Sir Peter Buchanan, Graham Landry and Derek Landry.  Albert and Derek, who are cousins, have a building and general maintenance company: Landry and Holland.  Graham is Derek's son and works for the company as a painter and decorator.  Sir Peter is an architect.  His mother, Lady Constance, is very involved with what goes on in Hazelton and she is very much the driving force behind the regeneration of the town.

I bought this shop box on ebay a few years ago.  It hadn't been finished, as you can see, but is nice and sturdy.  Personally, I really don't care for brick papers so I'm not at all upset that the paper is peeling off!  The paintwork finish isn't that good, either, so I shall be taking it right back to the bare bones.

It's a nice size, with the internal measurements being about 465mm wide, 230mm deep and 240mm high.  You can tell how long I've had it by the accumulation of dust on the window glazing sheets ~ and those pesky dust bunnies 😉

I like the shape of the windows but think I may build a sort of internal bay window to create a nice display area for passers-by.  The windowsills are a tad flimsy-looking, so will be replaced as part of the display windows.  I have a fab book by Beryl Armstrong called How to Make Your Dolls' House Special, which has lots of hints, tips and instructions for building and altering dolls' houses.

One of my problems is a lack of space to display my dolls' houses/shops, so I had the bright idea to combine the shop box with one of my other kits ~ et voila, two shops in one footprint!  I have a couple of candidates for the upper floor so started by trying this one first.  It is the Summer House kit by Dolls House Emporium.  I've had the kit for a number of years now and I'm not sure if they make it anymore.

I'll be honest, I sat and looked at it for a long time trying to decide what could be done to make it look better on top of the shop box.  The access to the upper shop will be from street level at the side of the ground floor shop.

There is a serving hatch at the rear of the building and a wide window at the front.  If I were to go with this option, then I would cover up the hatch at the back rather than making it into a window as it would give me more wall area for a shop display.

I pondered long and hard about the feasibility of using this kit,

looking at it from all sides.

I would have to do a lot of re-jigging to get it looking "right" including making the footprint wider, moving the wall with the doors further out to the side, and adding sections to the front and back walls to make them wider.

In the end Sir Peter and I came to the conclusion that it would be far better to use the other kit ~ thank goodness for his wise input 😉  That little saga will be following on in another post!