Oprah Magazine: Styling the Bennett House

I had a great opportunity back in December to style an entire Bennett House by brinca dada for the March 2015 issue of Oprah Magazine. The job came at a great time, since I had off from work over Christmas break, and I completed it in a little over a week (for comparison, my Ladies' Home Journal styling job took place over a few months). It was intensive but very fun.

The article is about how to "spiff up" your home for spring, so I had a framework from the editorial team to get me started. The photo editor knew that they wanted a modern, clean interior with specific things such as a large mirror in the entryway, plants on the upper level, a fireplace with birch logs, etc. So even before I had the house in hand, I started to consider what would work best from my collection.

About that house...I had to completely assemble it as part of the job. So, it was shipped to me flat and I immediately got to work. I'll be honest--it took me many hours to identify and organize the pieces and also get the adhesive off the windows. There was a lot of mental and physical elbow grease up front, but the results were great. It's a fantastic house that is a joy to style. 

Here is the completed house:

Once it was assembled, I had a much better sense of what furnishings would work. The house is closest to 1:16 scale, although 1:12 will also work. I realized the one thing I was lacking was a complete modern kitchen in 1:16 scale, so I ended up purchasing a Lundby Smaland one from a dollhouse store about an hour away.

Once I had the Lundby set, the rest of the kitchen came together quickly. The ceiling light is from IKEA and came in handy, and the clock is a favorite of mine from Bandai. I paired some colorful Reac Eames chairs with a custom dining table by Patie of Minisx2 on Etsy. The doggie was not planned by the magazine, but I added him in, and he made the cut! I love the way this room turned out.

The foyer also came together nicely. I ended up using a great 1:10 scale Bodo Hennig table, which worked well in that double-height space, along with a great graphic rug from minimodernistas. The mirror is a craft item, and I paired it with some funky fur boots by Re-ment. The light is a pull chain for a 1:1 scale ceiling fan from Lowe's, and the plant is AG Minis.

Yup, that's me

The biggest challenge was coming up with a modern fireplace and realistic birch logs. I ended up creating a fireplace with some wooden and plastic pieces and then actually found some real miniature birch logs at Michael's. I sent the magazine two different options and they ended up choosing the white one, which looks great with the picture frames by Paris Renfroe.

I was thrilled to be able to use a great "Long and Low" couch, pillow, and print ottoman by minimodernistas. They all worked really well in the space. 

The bedroom features a vintage German bed and a dresser, which I was not convinced would work in the space, but they did. 

The magazine was careful not to have the rooms be overtly midcentury modern; this was, of course, my original direction :)

No Eames for you!

No Risom, either!

They went for a Bodo Hennig chair instead, along with the globe fixture from minimodernistas.

The rooms went through some iterations, but not many. It was nice to see the house come together.

And yes, they kept the Mini Cooper, too!

Since the magazine hired a studio to take the photos, I had to pack up each of the furnishings and label everything according to its location. I also took pictures of the placements just in case. I then boxed up the house and drove it into New York City, directly to Hearst Corporation, which publishes the magazine.

My two older ones helped get everything safely into the Oprah offices :)

Here is the final spread, along with views of the individual pages. Very exciting!

The magazine added a red door, as well as a closet in the foyer

And my credit!!!

"Dollhouse Stylist." I LIKE IT. Hope you enjoyed the results!

Betsy McCall Dollhouse: More Progress

It's not often that I get to share a progress update on one of my houses, but I've made some time to work bit by bit on my Betsy McCall house. For quite some time, the house has been sitting cramped on a work table. It's tricky to get to, and the lighting stinks. These factors don't help, nor did the clutter in and around the house.

Over the last few months, though, I've been organizing my collection, and even sold two houses, in the spirit of streamlining my possessions. I have now found a home for most of my furnishings and accessories in neat little boxes that are all organized in one space. This also helped me clean out the shelving and re-organize the placement of some of my houses. I got rid of a table and opened up my main dollhouse room, which is in our basement.

An improvement, right?

Since I moved the McCall house into my main dollhouse room from the work space, I was able to pay it some attention. I admit to be inspired by recent posts on Retro Renovation about Kate's valiant efforts to build her McCall house from the plans and decorate. She just got a hold of some lovely retro papers. I am super jealous :)

I've not taken as big a leap as Kate -- more baby steps -- but I have made some changes. First, I painted the trim and other accents in the house, which I had not done previously.

Then, I tackled the the bedroom, which adjoins the main living space. I have already papered the living space in a bold graphic pattern, so I was looking to keep with patterns, but in complementary colors.

I decided on geometric yellow and gray scrapbook paper for the two side walls, and then a new polka dotted pattern from the Paper Source. I think they work quite well together!

This is a fun and great house to have made some small progress on -- I hope to get to more of it in the near future. I think the bathroom might be next!

Credits: Daybed is Paul MacAlister; credenza is by Cyd of Mini Mod Pod; grey rug is a felt coaster; white rug is adhesive felt; geometric wall paper is scrapbook paper and dotted paper is from the Paper Source; lamp is a dollhouse store find. Accessories are Lundby; Re-ment; AG Minis; Paris Renfroe; and The Shopping Sherpa.

The time it took me: 3 hours, including painting of trim, wallpapering, and pattern-cutting!