Who Gets The China?

Read or listen as my mom and I take a fun and surprisingly emotional stroll down memory lane on the quest for more closet space.

I am not sure if this is another “child of the 70’s” thing, but dollhouses were a big part of my childhood. Not the Barbie playhouse kind (one of my childhood besties had the Barbie Dream house and I had the pool and camper, so we had plenty of Barbie fun). But the sturdy, wooden kind with the open back where you spent hours arranging and rearranging the furniture and playing “family” with the little, stiff-limbed people “flying” up and down floors as there were no stairs.

My parents are both handy and liked to build and create projects back in the day. They built a huge deck at the back of our house together one summer and managed to stay married. One year, when I was about 5 or 6 years old, my mom was taking a woodworking class one night a week. I had no idea what went on there, but right before Christmas, I accidentally discovered it.

On Christmas Eve, I ventured into the typically “off-limits” project room at the back of our house. It was sort of rumpus room where tools and supplies were stored and projects were worked on. I had a sixth sense that something interesting was hiding in that room and it called to me. I quietly cracked the door and snuck in. Seconds later, I came running out screaming “A DOLL HOUSE! A DOLL HOUSE! Mom! Dad! There’s a dollhouse in there!

Uh-oh. Santa’s gift was blown, but of course I had no idea about that! Maybe this has happened to you. One year our younger daughter discovered 2 bikes hiding in our basement on Christmas Eve. Once again, Santa was thwarted!

Regardless of who delivered it, I was thrilled to wake up and see this darling blue dollhouse with yellow shutters waiting under the tree for me Christmas morning. It was painted the same exact colors as our real house, blue with yellow shutters, and the rooms were decorated, complete with 70’s wallpaper and avocado-green kitchen appliances. My friends and I played with that gem for hours and hours. Eventually it ended up in our house and my girls gave it a second lease on life. (Oh my gosh, I am sort of ashamed to admit it’s still in my basement. More on that later.)

Once my sister and I outgrew that simple blue and yellow model, we embarked on a craft project to build an upgraded Colonial model, complete with a pitched roof with skylight, a second-story patio, and electric lighting. It was a big upgrade! I think it was a shared project that my mom probably did most of the work on, including staining roof shingles and paving a patio, brick by miniature brick. The hallway wallpaper was a miniature version of the actual wallpaper in our house. How we found that, I’ll never know. This house was less “kid toy” and more “high-end hobby”.

We had fun decorating and redecorating it and rearranging the rooms, but eventually, other endeavors became more interesting for teenage girls so it lived a calm, peaceful existence in the attic for many years. All the tiny furniture was bubble-wrapped in a box for safekeeping.

Some years later it was time for my parents to move houses and a decision had to be made. Does it find a new owner in its hometown or does it go with them on the journey across the country?

A rational person might think this could have found another home in Connecticut where Colonial homes were all the rage. But no. For us, it headed 3,000 miles west to be available for possible future grandchildren – even though spouses were barely on the horizon.

The moving truck came and the big, burly movers clearly had never moved a dollhouse before. They were unaware of the structural issues in a house with no beams and pulled the roof right off! (Listen to Grandi’s telling of this dramatic moment in the podcast.)

Once it made its way west, my mom repaired it and the eventual four grandchildren rearranged the furniture hundreds of times like we did. But it had to stay at “Grandi’s house.” My sister and I teased my mom about how she meted out access and chided her that she wouldn’t let the grandsons near it for fear rambunctious boys would damage it or break a tiny, delicate chair. She tried to direct them to the indestructible Matchbox cars and Smurf figurines. (Yes, the ones from the 70’s.) When we remind her of this, she vehemently denies it. I mean, wasn’t the point of saving it for 40 plus years to let it get some playtime?

Fast-forward a couple decades to today and this thing is driving me nuts! It’s huge and it takes center stage in the guest room closet at my parents’ house. Yep, the bedroom with the side-by-side, quilt-covered twin beds we still sleep in as 50-something adults. This leaves no room for clothes so we can barely unpack suitcases when we visit, despite the enormous closet.

Recently, my sister and I made a joint trip to visit to see my parents. It’s no easy feat to sync up our own work, family and personal lives to do this, but we made it happen, also hoping for an hour or two at the beach or a yoga class to relax. (Ha! Who am I kidding, but a girl can have goals, right?)

After planes, trains and Ubers – because we refuse to let my dad drive to the airport anymore- we drag our bags into the twin bedroom. I open the impossibly heavy sliding closet doors, and there it is. The dollhouse. Taking up virtually the entire closet. I have had it. This is ridiculous. I tell myself, “On this visit, we ARE going to deal with this ball and chain at long last.”

We dragged it out of its hiding place to a table in the den and discovered the furniture all askew. Somewhat harshly my mom remarked, “Probably a little grandson played with it and left it like that.” She tried to play it off as if she was joking, but we know better. We roll our eyes in unison.

We started to dust it and unpack the furniture, actually delighting in memories of the items inside. My mom wonders if she should try to re-wire the lighting while my sister and I fawn over the handmade Christmas tree my mom made. We find the tiny six-pack of Pepsi-Cola bottles hiding in the miniature fridge – we drank a lot of cola in the 80s so this mattered to us! We ooh and ahh over the little pet bed with the porcelain dog still in it. (Of course! We have plenty of porcelain dogs in storage!)

We had a fun couple of hours dusting and cleaning and reliving some funny and sweet childhood memories. It’s fascinating how these little items, like the red piano with sheet music on its shelf or the gold birdcage, are imprinted forever on your brain. We reminisced about the dollhouse days, the little miniature furniture catalogs we pored over and the craft store on the Post Road that sold all the little goodies like shingles and glue.

I try to convince my mom that another family with kids might enjoy creating similar memories and, frankly, we’d really like the closet space back. She made us think she was on board.

We dusted off all the little furniture, laughing about broken chair legs while we “staged” the house for its upcoming listing. As with any big move, we drove each other a little crazy packing it all up and arguing about which items should go in which box. Shouldn’t all the kitchen appliances go together?

As we packed, my mom shared that when my great-grandmother passed, my grandmother chose to donate virtually every last thing she had to the Goodwill, leaving my mother with almost nothing to remember her by. My mom is still sad and angry about that, and I totally get that. This is part of what makes it so hard for her to part with sentimental items now. Or any item for that matter.

“Oh my gosh” I start to wonder, “am I an unfeeling, horrible daughter for wanting to get this house out of here?”And now we have created another fun memory by digging it out and prepping it for its next phase of life. So, can it move on now?

Maybe I am cold and calculating, but someday someone will have to do it. And it’s not just this memory-laden dollhouse that will have to find a new home. It’s a lot of things. Lots of simply random and meaningless things. The prospect of this is daunting to me and I want to get a little momentum going.

Thinking we were all onboard with the sale, I ran the comps, called a broker, and posted it on Facebook Marketplace for $150. I guess the market for 1980’s Colonial houses is slow in California. We had not one nibble.

As a backup, I call the cute, local miniatures consignment shop in town. Ms. Meggies graciously agreed to come get it, sell it and give us 50% of the proceeds. Yay! I think. This is amazing, a win-win.

Alas, this is a bargain my mother is not willing to strike. She is not willing to put a $75 price tag on these memories, and I begin to understand that now. “I think it should go for at least $150!” she says. I realize this dollhouse represents time spent together creating something special. It’s the family time and memories that matter and she’s not ready to let that go. So, the dollhouse sits, clean and dusted, in the garage waiting for a higher bid.

What have you had trouble letting go? I’d love to hear about it.