How to Make Your House a Real Life Mattel 1978 DreamHouse

Yes, it is quite possible. First, check out the current issue of Atomic Ranch magazine (if reading later it's September/August 2021). They gutted a 1950s shoebox ranch house, raised the roof and now it's an asymmetrical mid mod house with insanely cool breeze panel patio accents in the front. 

Once installed, these beautiful, maintenance free panels will give your house a unique, fetching look for years to come. 

Contractor white paint is slightly cheaper than tinted, two coats are better than one. Railing easily found in any home improvement store, or custom made by local carpenters. 

Easily ordered online, or custom made on site, you now have your white planter boxes! New Age nothing; these are groovy, baby! 

Don't be afraid to add color, you'll need to complete this step if you truly want that 1978 DreamHouse look. Remember to purchase exterior semi gloss paint, and use a micro fiber foam roller after sanding and cleaning thoroughly. 

Never be afraid to embrace a shocking yellow floor AND ceiling. Here we see it is smartly and correctly implemented into this bright, white space. It will be the talk of the neighborhood for years to come. 

See, yellow floors DO work. Try not to clutter it up, we want to actually see the yellow floors. You can also try yellow carpet, or if your rent then large yellow shag rugs will do in a pinch. I consider it a non-chemical mood lifter for all. 

Get ready to cross those rail road tracks into the spooky part of town to get these rare, vintage Harvest Gold appliances. Trust me, they still exist, you just may have to 'haunt' these used appliance stores for awhile and give them some elbow grease to clean them up good as new once they are delivered. Keep a bucket handy. 40 year old ice makers tend to leak every 3rd or 4th ice cube making cycle. Remember to pick up some orange and blue ice cube trays from the dollar store, too! 

I clean mine with Lemon Pledge. Keeps the wood grain looking so new and attractive. 

Thank you for letting me indulge in a sardonic, ironic post. It was fun, we must do this again soon. 

Here is your newly staged dining area. and if you design the ceiling like the center piece has, it would look like this:

And if you can find this linoleum in harvest gold, you are set: 

For a groovy Dream House door, simply paint the door yellow, and custom cut the breeze block pattern into plywood and attach. 

After all the above made changes have been made, you should have a home resembling our beloved. Short of remodeling, here is what I think the closest thing you could find "in the wild" on real estate apps. The price is average, great lot and so forth. I would likely add green shag carpeting and mid mod light fixtures and decor. 

Natural wooded lot, shed roof shaped sections, slat siding, vaulted ceilings, lots of natural interior light, large decks and even a cool carport make this one a winner! While 78-79 was the peak of this architectural movement, I have seen similar homes dating to as late as 96. Presumably, you could take old plans to a builder and get a brand new one. There are lots of books online with hundreds of similar options. 


architecture houses designand if you just want a larger playhouse outside that can withstand the weather, then with some modification, this may be for you: 

Make Replacement Windows and Glass Doors Using This:

 Ever wanted to make affordable window replacements for your renovation restoration project? How about filling in those big empty skylights with skylight 'glass'? Of, you could make your own floor to ceiling glass walls. As I was shopping at my local big box home improvement store, Home Depot, I noticed these plexiglass sheet in varying sizes near the lumber aisle. Finally, you can obtain the material inexpensively to fully customize your 1978 A Frame DreamHouse.  

As you can see it's not expensive and is readily available in different size sheets. Not only can you use this as faux glass, you could frost it with basic plain window frosting, or any of the faux stained glass appliqués they have now in the bathroom aisle for $24 a roll. 

So, while my A frame is currently in storage, when I do get it out again and set up, this is definitely going to be my next project. I will: fill in the skylights, add window glass to my 4th wall made from foam board and back the front doors with this so they are like the real life storm doors for real houses plus fill in the back doors window opening. 

I need to look up how to cut these, but I am guessing it is with a table saw after taping the cut line to avoid chipping. Then sand the edges as needed. Most likely, a simple model or airplane glue will suffice to secure into place. For replacement windows, I would use the yellow auto tape in the car aisle or Amazon, I outlined in an earlier post to create the yellow frame edges for the windows or rear glass doors. For hinges, I would either tape into place, or if you are dexterous, use the smallest drip bit and drill tiny holes in the correct spot to create the hinge peg holes as found on the original windows. For the for pegs, you could drill the holes then fill with a small peg like I did in the closet door repair post. Use search terms in the search box on this page to quickly find posts mentioned. Good luck with it. =-) 

Some dollar stores now carry yellow contact paper which could be used to make the edges yellow.

If you wanted to fill in upstairs openings, here is one solution: 

A Frame Goes Hollywood!

 Was flipping the channels yesterday and saw an old Olson twins movie with our beloved property. It reminded me of when I would watch Grace Under Fire, and the son's room had the Masters of the Universe Eternia play set (on Roseanne, DJ's room often showed Castle Grayskull), and the daughter's had the Strawberry Shortcake Berry Happy Home house in the back ground. 

When this came out, the pink house would not have been that old, and I wonder if they didn't use the middle section because it would have been too large and stolen the focus. Glad I found this 90's 'gem'. 

In Married with Children, season two, episode 14, titled 'Guys and Dolls', features Peg and Marcy recapturing childhood memories with Barbie while Al and Steve go off baseball card hunting.

Now where have I seen these diagonal slat walls before? Here is Lindsey Wagner on the Dina Shore Show, year unknown, but likely 77-79. 

tv television movies film famous celebrities actors

Celebrating 200,000 Page Views!

Thank you all so much for making this possible! Please continue to share on social media like Pinterest, it really does make a difference. While I am still sorting out the issue of my comments/replies not showing, I do appreciate your commentary. Here's to another 100,000 views.

World's Smallest Barbie Dollhouse: Now in Classic Colors!

Currently, the best available price is on Ebay for $14 for the red and yellow version.

If you aren't familiar with the "World's Smallest", it is a pretty cool line of retro toys, they probably have made a tiny version of your favorite childhood toy from the 60s or 70s, I own the Lite Brite, Lincoln Logs and Adventure Team GI Joe. They even have a Barbie size record player (turntable) that spins records! All are a great value considering you can actually play with all of them, they are not like a Hallmark ornament, they really are  mini version of the real thing. This set comes with the 3 best selling Barbies of all time: Zebra Swimsuit, Malibu and Totally Hair. They are smaller than, I think, the regular World's Smallest figs.

The stickers are reminiscent of the 1979 Colorforms set still around on Feebay. Feebay will also have HO and other similar scale furniture sets from overseas. Germany makes great little sets, but they are $35 a room! If you added a hook, this would be a deal of an ornament though.

https://smile.amazon.com/Worlds-Smallest-Barbie-Dreamhouse-Multi/dp/B084RFZ4HT/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=worlds+smallest+barbie+house&qid=1587063545&sr=8-1

The designers have taken liberty to somewhat redesign the house. You'll notice the front lanterns are gone, there are 3 added upper balcony planters in purple or mauve, there are double front doors upstairs, vertical slats, the downstairs horizontal windows are now 4 panes instead of one, the windows look tinted to reflect the blue sky outside, and the vertical lower windows are square not rectangular. 

This is similar to having the Colorforms house, you can take it with you in the car to play with during long car rides. Of note here is the particular choice of kitchen sink console...the same exact one I first showed the world on the blog how well it works, but with a yellow dishwasher. Since in the 15 years of collecting this house I have never, EVER seen another custom, much less yellow dishwasher added to the sink component, it is safe to say they got the inspiration from my blog post on here. Also, the white verticle cylindrical plant pots look especially like the ones I made from small plumbing pipe sections. Also, the bathroom vanity is like the arco one I used along with the Arco patio set I showed used with the house. Imitation is the most inner form of flattery, right? Though, it would have been nice to have been contacted since I was copied. I am disapointed for the red and yellow version of the World's Smallest Malibu house that there is not a yellow fridge or a green desk, which since they redisgned the stickers for this house anyway could have been easily done. They had legal permissions from Mattel to do this, so why they chose to design the house and furniture differently is beyond me. =-0

 

It would have been cool to have this in orange and yellow with more accurate architecture, but I'm happy with it. 

The balcony railing is removable and the roof tiles are matched perfectly. the house is only one piece though. 

PS: When applying the furniture stickers, they are moveable if you make a mistake or change your mind, I just use the edge of an exacto knife to pry off the corner, and the rest comes away, you can easily pop out the paper wall, place them exactly, and pop it back in. If making a Christmas tree ornament, you can custom cut a small piece of wire (dollar store), and bend around top center celing/roof beam at the peak and there you go! My new micro 1978 A Frame lives on my desk so I can enjoy it all day. =-)

decorating accessories smaller house 

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

editorial details writing

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