Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Homes For Sale: Current Housing Market (Summer 2014)









The vibe has definitely changed since I started following, collecting, restoring and blogging about this house in 2009. It used to be that I (or anyone) could easily snag a 'pre-renovated' house for $25-$65 plus shipping (generally $25-$40). Of course they were disassembled, seller packing ranged from no packing material (or care) whatsoever to each and ever piece being labelled and wrapped in styrofoam wrapping (not cheap). Nowadays (6 years later) I noticed more and more, number one: you definitely cannot obtain a house for less than $100 total, regardless of completeness or condition, secondly: people are throwing away (or 'I'll try to look for them') the post covers due to their condition (which I have blogged several times about how to restore brown, shattered ones) and three: sellers are too lazy to disassemble these for the prices they expect (not to mention their poor grammar and syntax). It seems that they often are not Barbie collectors, are ignorant of keeping all the parts together (and just how much is missing) and perhaps picked these up at yard sales or thrift shops for $20-$30 and are trying to make a quick buck. Sometimes they hose them off (which rusts the screws) and that does not properly remove 35 years of dust and bug crust. Its a very unfortunate situation; if I was wealthy I would purchase some of these and restore, but often they are thousands of miles away and there's just no way to get them since even if I got them to agree to ship, I would not trust a complete stranger to actually send a house if I sent them a check, and have them pack it in a way to prevent damage in shipping. Today there are SEVEN houses, all unrestored and incomplete and the owners refuse to ship them!!   Sigh..............

Monday, July 14, 2014

Box: 1982 Cottage : Closer Look





Recently, a never opened Cottage went for sale on Ebay. It was a few hundred dollars, which may seem high but it did have an interesting history of not only being a foreign issue box but also having belonged to original retail buyers. Also, the box was especially crisp and minty, an unusual trait since most boxes are faded, torn, dented and wrapped in tape by now.







Somehow, this one escaped color fading. Often the 4 post covers have yellowed but that's an easy fix with a $4 can of white pray paint AFTER cleaning them really good. 


Period decor: the remolded pink version 82-87? 


Perhaps the precursor to the inspiration behind the 82 Cottage. 


keywords 1978 Mattel A Frame Barbie Dream Doll House Red roof yellow floors mod groovy 1970s 1980s custom OOAK 1982 cottage