It all started with a $5 garage-sale purchase two years ago. The purchase – an old, practically destroyed dollhouse – was brought back to life by the women of the Four Corners Miniatures Club and donated to the Family Center of Durango.
For the donors, the six-month project was a labor of love achieved with long hours and exquisite detail.
For the Family Center, it’s not just a gift for visitors and children to admire and play with; it’s a tool to use in helping children cope with home life.
Jenni Aguilar, family education coordinator for the La Plata Family Centers Coalition, said the playhouse will be used as a prop for pretend play exercises.
“Pretend play” is a tool used to see how children are coping with life at home, she said. The house will be used to help children continue their development and express how their home life is affecting them.
“It gives them a chance to be healthy, react to what’s happening in their life and feel more empowered,” she said.
After restoring the dollhouse, the club wanted to find a nice home for it. The group finally decided on the La Plata Family Centers’ Durango branch, which focuses on building healthy communities by promoting the growth and development of families.
The La Plata Family Centers Coalition provides resources mostly for families with children up to 6 years old. Those resources include early childhood and parenting education, supervised visits, an on-site pantry, clothing, diapers, financial support, medicaid programs, child care and developmental screenings.
Aguilar helps children work on specific motor skills corresponding with their development stage.
The dollhouse contains many small accessories, and Aguilar made a point to find a location that smaller children couldn’t easily access.
As they made the delivery last week, the women of the Four Corners Miniatures Club began assembling the detailed pieces to the refurbished dollhouse. Each room, equipped with matching miniature furniture, had an entirely different color scheme.
Karen Severn was responsible for restoring the exterior of the house. She sanded the wood and carefully painted intricate decorations along the outside. It took several coats of paint to hide the graffiti that previously was splattered throughout, she said.
Mac Neely, one of the charter members of the group, which formed in 2006, relived her childhood by assembling the furniture inside the home. Neely was the interior decorator of the living room.
“She’s on her fifth childhood,” another member said jokingly as Neely carefully placed the tiny figurines in their appropriate places.
The address on the outside of the house, 20136, is representative of the start date, said Marilyn White, director of the Four Corners Miniatures Club. Work on the dollhouse, delivered last week, began in June.
Each room came with a specific set of furniture. The women of the club were careful in planning every minute detail of the house. In the bedroom, the material used for seat cushions perfectly matched the bedding.
Joanne Weaver was responsible for decorating the bath, White decorated the blue room, Mary Holaday did the purple room, Lea Tips worked on the kitchen and living room, and Jan McGrath created the playroom.
Everything is made on a one-inch scale, White said, meaning one inch is equal to one foot.
“We all did bits and pieces,” White said. “We tried to design it for children and were cautious of the accessories.”
vguthrie@durangoherald.com
