Changing to Part Time Status

So, as you know I have been keeping this blog up for quite a few years. I have bought and restored about 8 (maybe more) of these houses since 2008. I have often let the blog alone for a year and then come back with fresh ideas. Some of you might remember the weird google reboot when most of the photos were lost until a very helpful follower let me know to log back into an old account and it would repopulate the lost photos, thankfully it worked or this blog would still be a wasteland of random post text and not much else. I have watched the page views balloon to over 100,000, members grow to over 50 and lots of encouraging comments. Lately, I have been trying to reply, I write them, click reply and they don't appear.

I think I have just about fully covered every topic I can regarding the house. Thus, I have drifted into another aspect of my collecting which is crafting dioramas using vintage Ideal, Renwal, Marx and Plasco furniture and action figures, Barbies and PVC figures as the characters. I have started a Twitter account (@Miniopolous) to promote it, but so far havent figured out how to gain any traction. I started a Facebook profile (Johnny D'Plasticio) to post the narration along with the photos. I would call it a cross between Robot Chicken and The Far Side. I would love it if my loyal followers here could follow/friend me on that account to support me there (feedback welcome so I can improve). I have truly enjoyed making this blog and will always look back fondly. I look forward to posting funny scenes with my new hobby and I hope you all will follow me on the journey. =-)

dedicated blog/site:

https://welcometominiopolis.blogspot.com

FB Profile: Johnny D'Plasticio

FB Hobby Group: Mid Century & Mod 1/16 Scale Mini Plastic Furniture

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100029023874669

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Just an FYI

So, you know how most of these houses have faded to dull, beige-ish colors and now we have to go to great lengths to fully clean and spray paint the house white again? Well, it turns out that the flame retarding chemicals added to stuff in the 70s not only causes cancer and reproductive harm but never really halted fires that much to make it worth while anyway. Below is the document. =-/

I think we all knew that plastic does not accelerate fires, it just melts in the heat.

More Staging Tips

You can create and improve on these rooms any way you wish (one of the reasons why I love this house, the smaller rooms in the new house you cannot do this with). I found the rock cubes in a thrift store, I still have no idea what they are, but they work so well in mini rooms. The black squares are felt coasters I spray painted black for a wrought iron effect, and the potted plants are 99 cent store. The patio furniture is late '80s Arco (not bad, I just wish I had the chaise lounges to match). 1971 Malibu Ken look on as he tends the BBQ. 

 Also Arco is the jacuzzi tub. It came in blue and brown originally, then pink and purple, this one I sprayed the inside with auto metallic blue spray paint (highest quality I have ever used, worth the extra cost for a flawless finish), the outside is dark brown, though any shade will do, take the time to spray it so the wood grain will really pop. The mix drinks are drink stirrer tops from cost plus world market with the sticks snapped off, they are the perfect scale. I never did find a pair of sunglasses that 1978 Ken can actually wear.

Speaking of backyard ideas, I love the idea of a gazebo and or hot tub combo:

I noticed my 1978 Star Wars Cantina play set has a brown version of the flagstone floors and it got me thinking...How about his cool, miniature zen herb garden retreat upgraded add on for Barbie's house? The little blow mold form table counters are very reminiscent of the 1978 Sundae's Liddle Kiddle line. They are easily obtained on ebay rather inexpensively and of course can be customized in any way your imagination can think of: 

designing decorating furniture custom set up dolls

Just Having Some Fun This Week

While she initially had her doubts about meeting for coffee, afterwards Strawberry thought to herself, "We do have a berry lot in common". 

Yep, My Flipping Days are Done

So, when one buys a house, they arrive filthy and battered, and you get to clean up this mess at the end of unpacking

 Took me nearly 45 minutes to wade through the garbage to make sure I wasn't throwing away any pieces.

 Yep, still finding shards of post covers since they were not packed properly.

Oh joy, now I get to vacuum...

Then, when selling it, after refurbishing it (week of work), the crazy bidder never paid or responded to emails. No Buyer of any of the 5 homes I redid ever bothered to leave positive feedback. =-/ 

sigh...

FYI, the next buyer did pay but of course she is across the country so the USPS rate for 33.3 pounds in an oversize box ground is $179. FedEx is only $71. Use string tape to secure the flaps and corners, its going to need it. My net profit for my time and trouble of restoring this one: ZERO dollars. I paid $60 for it and sold it for $60 plus shipping. 

When you shop online you'll probably see houses like this on one facebook marketplace: yellowed corner post covers, 1-2 missing flower boxes, almost no flowers, dusty, somewhat faded, a couple of missing doors and windows. This is similar to what I would get on ebay around 2008-2009 for around $35-$100 with shipping. Now they are $100-$400 in random condition. There is almost always a misspelling, in this case the ad title was "1970 dremhouse"  so when searching you have to search for misspelled words, this one only came up on my "for sale" page because the algorithm knows I already searched for dollhouses and this was probably in a dollhouse category even though the word was not spelled correctly. So you have to be a bit of a sleuth and know you are getting a dirty, incomplete house from someone who doesn't know that those odd square or long white plastic pieces still in the garage or a box somewhere go to this house and so you'll need to ask them by describing the missing pieces and see if they can remember if they still have them. It's work, but if you can save one of these gems from the garbage heap or a buyer with spray paint and a weird idea of improving this thing by painting it all black or some other bad idea it's worth it. 

With so many just tired and heat bleached of much of the original color, you may have to end up painting everything if yours arrive looking like this: 

Remember, it is absolutely crucial you properly clean this thing in the bath by hand with both brush, sponge, hand cloth, etc or you will be spray painting over dust/debris and will not be happy with the outcome. An afternoon soak in a hot soapy tub will help lift 45 years of grime off for you, just have lots of Q tips handy to really get all the gook out of the endless corners and crevices. They have lived a lot in attics, basements and garages and sheds, so expect it to be work. 

buying selling online sales sale purchase obtaining wild finds garage sale store ebay facebook sellers shipping packing

Let There Be Light: On Getting Lit in the Malibu DreamHouse

I have bought little lights from the dollar store before to set up in the house, but I didn't really love any of them. I now order these $2 LED string lights from China via Ebay, They are powered by one AA battery, lasts awhile of you don't leave in on too long. You can bend the wire into any shape you want, it could illuminate a fake lamp, or dangle from the ceiling in a cluster as I have done here while the battery box rests on the upper rafter.

This red lamp is exceptionally cool, they also sold blue, but I just opened mine and it works until you take your finger off the button. So, the red one stays. I wish I bought more from the dollar store when they had them. 

Below is the light unit, it arrives from Asia with the long LED string bound, and when I opened the envelope, I thought, Oh this would make a cute doll house chandelier, and so it did! It sure beats trying to figure out how to wire this house the traditional way via plug ins and battery units. They come in all different colors and even a christmas version with all the different colors. You can paint or contact paper the battery pack box white to make it blend in better. 

I bought a 70 cent clear christmas ball from Michael's and fed the LED string light into it for this look:

 Here is a $3 LED camping light from 99 cent only store, it illuminates a room pretty well also.

Just like in a real house, proper lighting is so important. I love what the owner did here. Next time I have mine set up, I'll try exterior uplighting and see what that looks like. The translucent light pink is my favorite window version for the pink house. The new DreamHouse has nothing on this classic. 


GREAT idea for custom lights: self sticking light ribbon strips with easily concealed wires. I have seen these at Ikea in the Kitchen department, under cabinet lighting section, but I think you could easily get these on Amazon or at the hardware store. I imagine lots of folks are illuminating shelves and work spaces this way. I replaced the broken light in a curio cabinet this way. The LED bulbs never burn out, they are cool temperature wise and are inexpensive. 

A Frame Dining Room Staging and Inventory - Compare and Contrast

 I finally got through all of my storage and I uncovered a ton of kitchen items, I had a few bags of 70s kitchen stuff, and realized I had multiples of some items, so I compiled as complete a set as I could for my personal China Hutch and had all these leftover pieces, namely 3 bud vases, 2 tall coffee pots, a tea pot and 2 pitchers, plus scores of saucers and cups. I gather that many of you like staging the house like it is seen on the box photos. So, here are clear shots of what originally came with the hutch, mainly it a place setting for four. I had white shakers and pink goblets, so it was confusing to know what came with the blue hutch verses the later pink one. It seems they reversed the colors on some but not all of the items. Speaking of color, I still have the one hutch that heat faded to green, I am actually leaving it on my sunny kitchen window sill this week to even out and intensify  the color, I am kind of torn, I love that my blue hutch is still factory blue like its new, but the green one seems more '70's cohesive' in color scheme, almost matching the green desk. I had a factory pink vanity, but sold it in favor of my faded to salmon color vanity because the entire bathroom set I have is salmon colored so I thought it was a better match, plus the pink one reminded me too much of bubble gum.

The white set below as some of you might know is the 70s Sindy set, (from Australia or UK?), For it's time and that it was off brand (I have the hutch and dining room furniture), I am impressed with the quality, the setting is very high end with the candelabras, china and flatware. Gloria has been good as well about producing mansion quality kitchenware at bargain basement prices. 

Below is my own personal Sindy dining room, set with Gloria crystal, china and flatware. The model is Jane Seymour as Solitaire in Live and Let Die. She always goes well with my 70's dioramas. These rooms don't cost much to make, just some 99 cent store foam board, contact paper and hand made (mostly from magazine clippings) art and rug. The table cloth is a mens handkerchief from Walmart. 

 Many people, myself included, have custom painted and staged the pink and white gloria sets, they are well made, so totally worth the wait from China, there are even US sellers, but usually its still cheaper from Asia, I normally buy 3-5 sets at a time so I won't need to order (wait) again for awhile. The scale is perfect (larger than Mattel), can be painted any color, and since the table is really large one can set very grand functions.

 This is as it comes, just hope you get the 'cut crystal' glassware version, and not the plain glasses.

 The other Gloria set I am not as wild about, but is arguably one of the best out there. Bravo on the room diorama!

As I am fixated on translucent things, it started with the yellow hampster tunnels as a child, This is my current dining room set up. I still never got a complete set of blue dining room chairs, but I do have these 4 yellow ones from the Barbie electronic (talking?) house from awhile back. The translucent green dish/kitchen set I believe dates back to the 60's based on it's design. That's another reason why I like getting big mixed bags of stuff on ebay. There's always a great rare piece if you look long enough, then you can compile great collections like this one below. At one point, I amassed a large set of 60's pink and blue formal china and flatware that I sold as a lot, the buyer was thrilled to get it and the profits helped to pay for the pieces I keep.

Speaking of green, here is a hutch i picked up a few years ago as part of a larger lot, I kept it because it was different- it is green! It's a nice alternative to the baby blue original, and it goes well with my salmon colored bathroom set and striped of the stripes green living room set. It's currently for sale on ebay now.

Speaking of fading and collecting, if you are picky like me, it pays to get a few duplicates of the items you are interested in to raid for parts and upgrade to the best of the best, plus, had I not bought this second Ferrari, then I would not have realized there was the sultry dark merlot color and also a bright candy apple red version:

Naturally, I was raiding the 2nd purchase for parts (namely the windshield) and immediately noticed the variation. I have since restored the lighter red just for fun prior to selling it back on Feebay sans the glass. I do plan to make Sculpey side view mirrors for all the cars, I have 3 Ferraris and a grey corvette, so I think I will make all side view mirrors black for ease of production, wish me luck! FYI- for anything large, previously shiny and presently scuffed/scratched, use the good old standard I have referenced before, MacGuire's PlastX auto finish cream, make sure surface is debris free, buff on with a SOFT and CLEAN rag, use gloves, buff to a high shine, windex and you're done. May not remove the yellow from windows and windshields, but its super glossy after. I found it very easy using white sticker labels from the office supply place to reproduce missing car stickers/decals, I taped off the sides to sharpie in the black stripe, new seatbelts were fashioned out of black paper and I had extra license plates via the DMV specialty plate brochure. I need to pick up a real estate magazine to cut out some mini maps to include with the cars. I made a replacement gear shift out of a q tip clipped with toe nail clippers to proper length, and sharpie'd black. =-) 

Cleaned up chairs with upholstry and padding removed:

Perhaps the real life inspiration to our 77 piece: 

dinging room furniture 1977 dream line accessories staging

Misc. Musings: Fall 2018 Edition

Save-A-Lot had their annual end of summer sale and clearanced these ice cube trays, they are identical to the 1977 side by side yellow fridge trays. So, for my $1.05 each I snagged a few sets to nostalgically stage my own fridge. 

 I am in the middle of renovating the house thats lived in storage since I bought it a few years ago. The posts were terribly damaged in shipment due to poor packaging, they kind of remind me of shoe string fries here. Anyhow, I sat one night while watching TV putting it all back together, I even utilized the bag of pieces I had from other renovations. I was able to reconstruct quite a lot, not all, and was left with very little unusable pieces, this is my third or fourth time making post covers from the remnants this badly damaged set, there is an art to it and learning curve, I was better at it this last go round than before, taping techniques improved, blending post cover strips from other post covers nesting the curved edges was increased as it works and is better than not matching at all, in some cases the post is almost half tape, but I used good quality thick Scotch box tape and it really helped with rigidity. It will still take a ton of spray paint to finish these, but I have nearly a complete set from these yellow shards.

Here is a "Frankenstein" post cover made up from at least 3 different ones, nesting the curved corners really helps. Once painted, the thick tape will be nearly undetectable. You'll be pleased with the results and the satisfaction of saving another set of corner covers from the rubbish heap.

This is what your complete set of post covers should look like:

Also, this week while I was crafting I took this pic, if you are getting into custom paint jobs and improving stuff, it might be worthwhile to invest in one of those magnifying glass stands with the clips to hold small items, I really used mine this week:

In the search for a more "Mod" retro 70s look, I wanted a hanging egg basket chair, since an affordable 1/6 scale one was unavailable on ebay I made my own using about 20 cents worth of thermostat wire. Not too shabby for my first pass at this.

This house looks so familiar...

2019-2020 Packaging inspired by the 70's dream house. I think it's time they reissued it or at least made a NICE modern version of it for today's adult collectors. 

Another local southern California home circa 1980 no doubt the inspiration to our Mattel home. 

I'm not sure what I am looking at, is it a Bazaar/rummage sale, school play room, museum or private collection?? 

As I was driving, I saw in someones yard a big outdoor plastic playhouse that resemebled our beloved A Frame. It had a cream colored base with large openings for the windows, and an asymetrical orange colored roof with simulated Spanish barrel tile effect. Wish I could have snapped a pic, but I am sure it is online someplace. I just dont know the name of it or where it was sold. Here is the original bump out, it's not a closet, it's a toilet room before someone invented plumbing, but it sure reminds me of the home's posterior.

Yep, a bump out closet is totally a thing. 

bump out closet miscellaneous