Buying experience #8: June 2016

I honestly was not in the market for a house, i had just paid for house #7 and it hasn’t even arrived yet! however, i was looking for a lantern for the house i just bought. i was shocked to see that at 630am that morning a 99% complete (just missing the upstairs flower boxes) house WITH PATIO TRIANGLES!!! was for sale (not auction style) for a mere $116 including shipping. maybe my good fortune was in part because instead of listing it as an ‘A Frame’ in the listing title it was ‘authentic’ which i have seen it be called more than once. this one is also coming from the original owner. Since I JUST bought a house (to upgrade parts on my own), I dismissed it as bad timing since I would rather have had this house with the patio triangles since those alone are with up to $70. I went for my run and decided to make an offer when I got back, IF it was still available. Not getting my hopes up I offered $85, that way her net would be $101, not some lesser amount under $100. I was right, she agreed to it within 2 minutes of my submitting the offer!! She even asked me how she should ship it. So, I sent detailed instructions, nothing too picky, just things i learned over the years, like to request that the screws be put into a baggie, to use packing material to cushion the parts, and to nest the post overs together or leave them on the walls for protection. 

i will say that the random success of house #7 woke up my obsessive interest in buying this house over and over and over again, so long as it is complete. I don’t care so much about what color the house is, though pink seems to be way more popular than the red and yellow one, if the house is nice and minty white then i can upgrade my house, if the house needs painting, then i can restore it to original grandure or reinvent it with different colors like i did with the green house or others have done with black, grey, brown and purple paint colors. 

UPDATE: I got an email from her telling me that shipping is $85 and do i want to pay more because the shipping I paid was not enough, i told her I just won another house for $112 and I couldn’t afford to pay more, but would she sell me just the patio triangles, her reply was to cancel the order and not email me back about the triangles. Aren’t people GREAT?! 

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

Buying Experience #7: June 2016

On another random search on ebay for a frames, i found this nearly complete set being sold by the original owner. it was auction style and i ended up winning it for $102, so after shipping the house netted about $58. It was only missing a few post covers and flowers which are both the most easily replaced items on the house. also it was missing one lantern. the post covers are brown and broken, but overall the house is…

 She did tell me that shipping was $75 which surprised me since i have always paid $40 with USPS and they have a business account with UPS which should make it even cheaper. so, after 75 of shipping, and $15 worth of packaging and box, the house itself netted for $12.

However, they packed it with the bubble wrap piled on top and no packing material to cushion any of the parts, least of all the post covers, so naturally they were smashed to bits in transit, see photos. 

…so, while i am no longer interested in buying incomplete houses that include the chore of locating or making a bunch of parts, i was curious to see the current prices and not at all expecting a nearly complete house for close to $100. 

UPDATE: I am in the process of renovating this house, so far I have upgraded my own house with: one new wall, 2 upstairs flower boxes, a few shinier screws and some purple flowers. This was the first house I used yellow tape to restore long clear doors (came out great). I did the most extensive repairs to post covers to date. 1 week after buying this another near complete house on ebay sold for only $62. mwa, mwaaa…..

Started off good: nice big sturdy box, I was so excited! 

Ok, nice packing on top, but whats this? No packaging around the actual house parts?? 

I knew already there would be post cover damage and possible window scratches. 

Gross bug dirt. 

35 years of dust accumulation. When you clean these plan on being in the shower for about an hour with parts, toothbrush and lots of liquid dish soap. 

The first step of every reno is to clean the parts, I don't know how buyers just set up the house with this much crud on it. 

this was not disclosed to me in the listing, custom screws in the upstairs flower boxes to secure the in place, while they almost look factory and were properly done, i don't find them absolutely necessary, it presented another Sophie's choice dilemma: upgrade my less white flower boxes fro these, but live with the screw holes, or not. ultimately i ended up trading them out for mine with the reasoning that i can cover these tiny holes with foliage and they are much white than mine. the other sophies choice here was that it came with one very white lantern,  i have 2 rather yellowed ones on my house, so do i trade up just one but they are different colors or just leave them? i ended up painting mine white since i was painting the post overs to this house anyway, so might as well. unless they are getting yellower, i wondered how i didn't paints these earlier, maybe i just wanted a completely unpainted house, not really sure. strangely some parts of this house were whiter than my near mint house but only some parts, not all, =-0

If the seller lifts a finger to "clean" the house before selling, they cant even wait for the garden hose water to dry before putting it up on ebay, here you can almost see the screws rusting away due to a person's laziness and ineptitude.

On Packing Post Covers for Damage Prevention

Nestled together snug as a bug. Here they are self supporting and take up less room when shipping. 

Thoughtless seller did not do the right thing. 

This is what happens when small parts are not wrapped with paper or bubble wrap. 

Once large pieces are taken out of the shipping box, this is what remains on the bottom of the box. :(

Even the floor piece got broken, a blog host first. Testers plastic glue fixed it though. 

I had asked the seller to please wrap these so they would not get broken, the reply was, "We'll do our best!" So, always expect this, and once in awhile you'll get a conscientious seller who actually wraps parts in packing to protect against this.

Alternately, you can leave on the walls for damage prevention while shipped or even just while being stored. 

Total support, though with 6 walls they don't stack as neatly. 

Custom Houses: Summer 2016

This I like. 

Hmmm, brown patio triangles...

Some have wondered about customizing the house into a mega mansion or condominiums. While you can see here that it is done, I would not suggest cutting the wall posts down to make a custom house since it further reduces the inventory of houses out there. I have placed the houses side by side, added a few 1982 cottages for guest houses or garages and thats always fun. If you want vertical mega mentions, why not buy a 6 foot tall plastic shelf? Its bigger, more open and much less expensive. You could still top it off with an A Frame section. Also see the vintage cardboard townhouses, also stackable.

at $15, this is a MUCH better option fro creating open style condos or mansions for Barbie and her friends. Please do not cut down wall posts to make a cluster-#$%# of vintage toy, folks. You can put the house or cottage on top to cap it off. 

This configuration always reminds me of a shopping center for some reason. The sides could be mid century butterfly roof houses. 

 Faded Glory: Here is the reason why complete restoration is necessary. Many of these homes are just too faded and far gone to leave as is. Just remember to completely remove all dust and dirt prior to spraying.

Im not sure whats going on here, it kind of looks like there was a fire and this is the smoldering remains the next day. Definitely not 'A-Frame Meth House'.

While not an A Frame configuration, it is the largest set up I have ever seen!

Real Life Examples: Summer 2016 Edition

As we have talked about before, this house has somewhat of an identity crisis. Mattel generically calls it a 'DreamHouse', we have dubbed it (incorrectly) an 'A Frame', and now Mattel is calling the updated version a 'Beach House'. I live in Southern California and see real life examples of the 1978 Barbie house all over. It is mostly a 1970s contemporary home with Spanish and modern influences. These photos illustrate my observations in similar colors.

Mid century mondrian style coloring and lines. 

1980 house, long sloping roof, white railing in front, red tile roof. 

Socal beach houses with shed roof line

Shed-roof roof line

How I imagine the decor to really be. 

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

Diagonal slats. 

Drive by of a 1970s split/double shed roof house. 

If the house were real, and you were downstairs looking up into a yellow floor base plate. 

I believe this is an interior of a 70s home that the 1979 Barbie House Designers were going for when they designed the DreamFurniture line. Modern, fun, colorful and very groovy. It wold be nice to have a hanging lamp and stereo to go with the living room set. 

take away the chimneys and middle sections and you have a couple of side pieces to the house, notice the shed roof style roof line and clean, contemporary lines 

Notice the window frame? Hmm, I know I have seen this before someplace. This is the back of a house that does not have a closet or a balcony, and I use foam board to make up the front facade of the second floor, leaving the Cross T bar side to expose the rear facade. 

While the above is a 1910s Canadian row house, it actually features our 1978 Malibu house bump out closet. Still a terrible idea whatever the country or century, there it is. Personally, I think a wardrobe or even using the smallest bedroom as a walk in closet would be a better idea than this odd addition that tells passersby, "This house has crappy closets, have a nice day".