A New Car

Everyone is thrilled with the new car that was given to Wayfarers Inn.

The car is a Jim Beam Whiskey bottle kindly donated by my HLP (minus the whiskey). Behind the rear wheel you can see the cork, which doesn't stay in.

Mr. Philadelphia tells one of the unnamed dolls why he doesn't think women should drive.

Mr. Philadelphia is one of the few dolls who could drive (because his legs bend), if the doors would open, which they don't, and if they did all the whiskey would spill out, if there was any whiskey in it, which there isn't.

Another of the unnamed girls admires the car.

Since I had no idea how many dolls live at Wayfarers Inn, I decided to take a group picture and count them.

I think there are 30, but I kept losing count and I didn't count the two little girls.

Front center are Mary Rose, Goldie, and Geoffrey, who started it all.

Goldie, Geoffrey, Juliana, Gloriana, and Mary Rose at home in the library.

Juliana and Gloriana are wearing dresses taken from Madame Alexander's Happy Meal dolls. Now that I know they fit, we will be on the lookout for more of them. I just wish we could figure out how to get the hats/headpieces off those dolls. They are very firmly affixed to the doll heads.

Progress - I think

They say you have to break eggs to make an omelet, so I started tearing down the new Wayfarers Inn.

The shingled roof was the easiest to remove. It was really rotting away. So was the base, which came off easily.

My tools.

The back was the hardest. It didn't want to come off. I removed the rafters, which can be reused.

Gutted

The two floors lifted out easily and will be used as patterns for the new floors.

It doesn't look like much is left, but the front and two sides are the main parts of the house. HLP will cut new floors, including a new base. The inside will be sanded and painted. We'll figure out how to put the rafters back on. The shingles are in very bad repair and will have to be replaced. The house is currently stored under my porch.

Meanwhile, back at the old Wayfarers Inn, they have some new treasures.

"If only we could sit down, Geoffrey."

We found this lovely little rustic chair at one of the thrift stores.

"At last! A real toilet!" says Bonnie.

Another find was this toilet. The bathroom is almost complete.

What was originally intended to be a bedroom has ended up as a lumber room. There is a desk/cupboard that doesn't really fit anywhere else, a dressmaker form that bears no resemblance to any of these dolls' bodies, a metal thing that looks like it could be a gong, a pirate's chest, and another Avon clock. The clock was to have gone in the Grayson's new house but it's too tall.

The New Wayfarers Inn

If you have been following my other blog, http://dollyfever.blogspot.com/  you will know of our efforts to get this doll/birdhouse:

While we were waiting to get it, I found another house for the Graysons and decided this one would be perfect for a new Wayfarers Inn. It looks like a country farmhouse and because the windows are so big, the Wayfarers are a better size for it. So a few days ago, my Husband-Like Person and a friend went and got it. He said Johnie grabbed the $20 bill, scurried inside his house, saying "Good luck getting it out" as he slammed the door. You can't see in this picture but it was mounted on a pole sunk into concrete in the ground. HLP and his friend ended up sawing the pole off and lugging the house to Auntie Berman's yard.

So today I got the shop vac and cleaned it out.

Downstairs

Upstairs - Before

Upstairs - After

The base and the floors were made of some kind of pressboard which was rotting away, so I easily removed that. The house itself is of some sort of sturdier, yet lightweight wood. It has real shingles on it, cut down from big shingles. Because I had never seen the far left side, I was pleased to find a fake chimney.

Now we know where the fireplace goes

It has cunning little rafters upstairs.

That long stick isn't part of the rafters. I'm not sure where it goes.

Cassie waves from the downstairs window.

Cassie is the only Wayfarer who has seen the house so far. She was handy so I grabbed her. She can't wait to tell the others.

Now, all we have to do is hose it down, sand it down, repaint it, rebuild the upper dormer window, put in two new floors . . . I see a lot of sanding in my future. We were going to take the back off but now I'm not so sure. The windows are big enough to reach into, so maybe we'll just put the furnishings in through them. We'll get it all fixed up before we decide.

The back of the house.

Meanwhile, I gave all my Costumed dolls to Mrs. Smith. She likes them in costume and gets upset when I remove their staples and redress them. These girls were all the newer 60s dolls and I hadn't bonded with them and things were getting crowded, so I didn't mind giving them to her. Then I found two more dolls at work:

The Mexican one is rather dreadful. Her arms are vinyl and her face and legs are painted a very unnatural pink and a large bit of paint has peeled off her nose. Her right arm has come out of its socket but I would have to take off her clothes to fix it. I'm guessing the rest of her body is some kind of plastic but it feels very brittle. Her feet are glued onto a small board.

The girl on the right is one of the older hard plastic dolls. Her hair is amazingly nice--no bald spots! I am going to destaplize her and make her new clothes. She will fit right in at Wayfarers Inn.

Rhett Butler Moves In

I had noticed Rhett Butler/Clark Gable standing on the Girls' Toys shelf at work for a couple of days and finally investigated. He was 8 inches tall and made of a hard plastic with painted-on clothes.

I thought he was probably too tall for the little dolls, but decided I'd try him out. Although he is taller than everybody, I don't think he's out of place.

Rhett meets Jeff in the library.

He seems even more normal in the dining room.

Goldie and Geoffrey wish Rhett would not look over their shoulders.

Meanwhile, Tiffany the mini Liv doll came for a brief visit to Wayfarers Inn.

"Oh my! I feel very small here."

"They're all looking down at me!"

"I don't want to be one of the children!"

It's amazing what a difference an inch and a half makes. Tiffany decided to go back and live with the Graysons. DollyFever

"This family is weird, but I like it much better here than at Wayfarers Inn."

The Bag of New Girls and Eye Transplants

I finally got around to putting together the bag of doll parts that Mrs. Smith got for me. I was able to make five complete dolls. The little Storybook doll needs an arm and she is not put together the same as the rest, so I am saving her for another day.

Luckily we had found some clothes while thrifting.

I made the dresses for the two left-hand girls. The one in blue has part of a hat glued to her hair, which she will have to keep on until they all go to the Bunch O Hair Salon. The middle one originally had a huge ruffle around the bottom of her skirt but it looks much nicer without it. The colorful outfit of Girl #4 involves a small bathing suit, a midriff top, and a skirt. Girl #5 is wearing what appears to be pajama pants and a slightly too big top.

I thought one of the girls had her eyes stuck closed and tried to loosen them with a crochet hook, but then we decided someone had maybe painted over her eyes. It's hard to tell.

Sort of like Little Orphan Annie with blunked-out eyeballs

I wanted Auntie Berman to paint in eyes, but she refused. One of us got the bright idea of an eye transplant. But who would be the donor?  I remembered that I have a few extra Barbie heads.

"I like her eyes!"

It would bother me to take an Xacto knife to an innocent doll's head, but it didn't faze Auntie Berman a bit. (You may recall she once scalped a small doll in a failed experiment involving hair.)

The donor looks at her eye.

With the aid of a hot glue gun, the operation was quickly completed.

Don't look too closely.

It does look like she has bags under her eyes, but we prefer to think she's wearing goggles of some sort and it gives her a steampunk look. Anyway, she is very happy to see again. (The discarded Barbie head was given to a very happy dog for his amusement.)

Next, the new girls went to Wayfarers Inn.

"Lovely kitchen!"

Alice and Reginald show the new girl the dining room.

"What a beautiful bathtub!"