Making Dolls Houses: In 1/12 Scale (A David and Charles craft book)

Intended for anyone with ordinary woodworking skills, this book offers complete plans and instructions for making five dolls' houses. A simple three-roomed Victorian shop, suitable for beginners, is followed by a Georgian house, a thatched cottage and a quayside fisherman's cottage. The final project, a more complex three-storey Tudor house complete with beams and timber framing, is for the more ambitious craftsman. The author makes dolls' houses professionally. He was the British Toymakers Guild's "Toymaker of the Year" in 1987.

Nickolls provides complete instructions for six projects of increasing complexity: a workshop, Victorian shop, Georgian house, thatched cottage, fisherman's cottage, and Tudor house. He emphasizes construction, describing tools and materials in detail, listing sources, but only mentioning furnishings and decoration. Some 132 diagrams supplement the text. The photographs are excellent, showing sparsely furnished rooms in contrast to the cluttered Victorian look usually seen in recent American books. Nickolls's advice is sound, e.g., he recommends a trial fit before beginning assembly. Though the terms used are British, measurements are in feet and inches. A good book to recommend to the hobbyist wanting a slightly different project. --Patricia B. Brown, Navistar Corp. Lib., Melrose Park, Ill.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.