When I was a young girl, there was something that I got one year for Christmas that I treasured for years until it was lost one day in a fire. The dollhouse my dad built for me was more than anything a young girl could dream of or wish for. It was not something you buy in a store. He was very good with wood and was an artist on top of that. I got a dream dollhouse that became the envy of all of my little friends. I didn’t mind sharing though, and it was something we all played with for hours on end.
The dollhouse had three stories and was about three feet wide. I can’t imagine how long it took him to make it, and looking back, I am touched at the amount of time it must have took him to get it just right. Besides building the dollhouse, he had painted the interior and exterior, and had also put in carpeting. He left some of the design to me, but for the most part, it was ready to play with when I got it. He made it large enough for my Barbies, which I had a lot of at the time.
The dollhouse lost its appeal as I grew older, but I still never wanted to part with it. I didn’t play with it as much as I once did, but I kept it in my room. At times it was where I put stuff I couldn’t find a place for, but for the most part, it did remain much like it was when I first got it. Once when we moved when I was a teenager, I found that I didn’t have room for the dollhouse in my new bedroom. This meant I had to put it into storage. It was put into an old house on my grandparent’s property as was there when I went off to college.
Then something happened that took the dollhouse from my life once and for all. There was a fire in that small house where my house was stored and it was lost forever. I was distraught as it was something I wanted to pass down to my own daughter one day, if I had one. My dad told me to not take it too hard, because he remembered what the dollhouse looked like, and he wouldn’t mind building another one some day in the future if I wanted one for my children. Ten years have passed since then, but I remember his offer. I’m hoping he can recreate the dollhouse for my daughter for her sixth birthday next year.
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