I've already told you the woeful story of how I lost my two childhood doll's houses and how I've spent years trying to find and replace them and all the furniture / people I housed within them... I found a "as close as dammit" Triang several years ago which replaced the lost one from my childhood, however I found it a complete nightmare to even find a replacement for my GeeBee house, and when I did find them they were way out of my price tag, until two weeks ago, when I decided to bid on one I'd been saving in my Ebay Watch List, I actually missed out on it on it's first listing as it had a starting bid of £29.00 and I'd already spent all my money so I wouldn't have been able to pay for it if I had of won...
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Photo from listing
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Turned out it was a good thing too as a few days late (and closer to Pay Day) it was relisted, only this time the price had been lowered to £19.00, so of course I couldn't stop myself from taking a chance at auction and yay I won, and then it got even better as the seller who had had the house since her own childhood and obviously looked after it very well, refunded me £6.00 on the postage as the original amount stated turned out to be more than it actually cost, so not only did I finally find my house in great condition, but I also (technically) got £16 knocked off the price woot woot!
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Photo from listing
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Like my other GeeBee dolls house, this one is also made of wood and hardboard (quite possibly they all are), the front of the house is pretty much a facade with only the veranda which goes from the back of the house at second floor level on the left side; around the side, stopping halfway across the front where a staircase (the only one the house has!) connects the second floor to ground level stopping just outside the front door.
This house has a far more generous sided ground than the smaller GeeBee house I have, being approx five and a half inches from the wall to the end of the cobblestone base on which it sits.
The wall below the veranda is decorated with shingle effect; like the rest of the house, and a door, window and large arrangement of flower troughs which go from the non opening door right along to the side wall of the veranda's supporting wall. This wall is decorated on the outside with sandstone brick effect, flowers and an apple tree, there is also a small opening metal double window to let some light into the gallery style room behind the wall.
The veranda is decorated with wood effect planking and a largish yellow trim below it. the room that opens out onto the veranda has a large bay window, decorated with several Crown Glass (bullseye) circles in the panes, and boosts double glazing as well as a door at the facing the front of the house, through which the occupants are able to access an enjoy the view from the veranda on a sunny day.
The two bay windows and the door on the second floor give the house a very light an airy feel to it... Although there are no bay windows on the first floor there are a door an double window which also let in a fair amount of light, so even the gallery room downstairs which proportions wise, isn't useful as a main room; but will do just fine as a utility, gallery style kitchen, or in this case bathroom: I've never been able to deal with the idea of my dolls having to get up in the middle of the night and go outside to find somewhere to go privy, so every dolls house I have must have a bathroom or at least the semblance of one or I have a hard time dealing with it!
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| Image from google search |
As you can see in the above picture, there is an extra post / support for the balcony which is missing from the house I purchased - shown in the first two pictures. However, this is an easy fix and as mine has the red staircase for this area, which is not glued or otherwise secured into place and so could easily have been lost over the years, I really don't mind spending a few minutes to cut a piece of wood to replace it.
While I was awaiting delivery of this house, I did crazy amounts of google searches and read countless dollshouse group postings, read blog posts, squidoo pages and anything else that mentioned GeeBee houses in an attempt to find out more about this house and also hopefully find some images so I can compare them with the house in my mind's eye and the one I purchased, so that when it arrived I can work out if anything is missing, and what if anything I nee to make or do in order to replace any broken or missing parts.
However, I really wasn't able to find much at all and even less with corresponding photographs, I lost count of the amount of information I read just because it had the words GeeBee dolls house, only to discover after reading it that it was an entirely different house, and so apart from the limited information and photographs I've managed to collate here, I'm still sadly, pretty clueless about it.
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| Image from google search |
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| Image from google search |
The two photographs above show views of the left and right sides of the house respectively, as you can see there is a lot of detail on the outside, which again gives the house a kind of "up market" feel, I mean just imagine if this was a real house with that cladding and fixtures on the facade it would cost at least a couple of thousand pounds, in the right location of course!
The view of the left side, showing the two windows on that side also shows that the house should have a yellow trim running around bottom of the veranda, in that photograph it has been damaged, however, mine thankfully has no damage in that area. it also has all the original windows and doors, right down to the "Georgian style window" insert with several Crown Glass ( Bullseye) printed onto plastic which fits into the bay window giving the effect of double glazing in the bay windows
The regular yellow and white metal windows all have their perspex "glass", locks, and surround in place, but as these are made to be opened they do not have the bay appearance or the double glazing of the others..
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| Image from google search |
The front of the house has three doors, two of which open both of white have the same yellow metal frames and white inserts which match the opening windows; the third one is just for decoration.
The door closest to the veranda's staircase opens onto a large living room area, the other door opens onto the smaller of the two bedrooms and is recessed into an arched porch type area coming off the veranda.
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| Image from another Ebay Listing. |
The back of the house is completely open for access to the three rooms on the ground floor an two rooms upstairs, each of which in true 1970's/1980's dollshouse kitsch style, have printed rugs placed in the centre of each floor.
Like my other GeeBee house the inner walls which also form the outer walls have approximately half an inch to one inch, wooden frames, the bottom supports of which run along the inside of the floor, against the wall itself, this can make it a bit of a nuisance to arrange furniture as I discovered recently with my smaller GeeBee house, when I attempted to arrange the Jean's of Germany kitchen set I have for it, unlike this house that one has windows positioned in such a way that here are only one or maybe two ways in which you can arrange the cupboards and white goods, but due to the wooden floor support they do not fit flush against the wall and therefore jut out slightly and take up valuable floor space.
However, the position or doors, windows an floor supports in this house makes interior designing a lt easier, especially as the rooms are bigger too. What I do find a little odd though and cannot remember ever noticing as a child, although I'm sure I would have done so, is the distance between the floor and the bottom of the doors, it has to be approaching an inch, so I guess I'll have to put up some "Mind Your Step" signs before the new homeowners move in or else one of them may end up breaking their leg!
In terms of scale the house, like my other GeeBee and my Triang is 1: 24th.
the house itself is rather large when compared to the Triang and one berom GeeBee houses as this one approximately: 16 inches / 42cm Tall. 22 inches / 56cm long and 15 inches /38cm wide.
I think half the reason why I have been having such a hard time locating this house is because I have never known the name of the model, and only realised it must be a GeeBee house when I saw similar external decoration on another style house while looking through countless Ebay pages trying to see if it was possible to fin another on there... and it also seems to be quite rare, this style only seems to come up for purchase once in a blue moon.
I guess it is possible that due to it's large size it in't sell as well as other models, as a doll's house generally requires an area on a shelf or piece of furniture onto which it can be placed and remain relatively undisturbed when it is not being played with, there's also the mater of devilish little pets stealing items so they too can play, so most dolls houses tend to be "up" somewhere, and it's not always possible to find the space to do so.
GeeBee made a similar house which is often described as a "Chalet" but while it has several features in common with this one, it is very clear to me just how different they are and so instead of purchasing one of those, which I have to admit I have passed up the chance to do so many times as I just couldn't allow myself to buy another GeeBee house unless it was identical to the one I loved as a child and lost during our move to Wales.
Still at least I can now say my quest for a replacement is finally over!
