I used to collect model train set buildings, from MCM modern period, that I'd find at model train show. There were great art deco & modernist designs of gas stations, houses, stations. But the spouse broke a few moving them around, so I hid the rest. I never found a good place to show them, so ended up taking pictures of them then giving them to Goodwill... But I still have my 1/144th scale SST plane!!!

One fun way to use dollhouses is to pull them out at Christmas time. I used to decorate mine with Christmas stuff and stick it next to the real tree.

Or you can make like Queen Mary and build a whole new room to house your awesome doll house. ;)

Oh, I forgot! One of the most amazing studios I've ever seen had a line of tiny, perfectly detailed dollhouse chairs painted white and attached to the wall. It sounded so simple but it looked amazing.

I visited House on the Rock recently and there is a tremendous dollhouse display there (as well as other things!). One thing I took away that I might like to do in my own home is a small display in a bell jar.

sorry, they are very cool (thinking of the miniatures at the Chicago Art Institute)..... but the main image just reminded me of the creepy creepy serial killer episodes on CSI a few years back.

I've never been a big fan of dollhouses (they seem too cutesy to me) until I saw the Bloggess' haunted dollhouse. If I ever get enough room (and enough OCD) I would attempt this.

I had several dollhouses growing up and although they are put away now, I'm still very attached. One of my favorites was the Brio dollhouse - Brio 60s and 70s Dollhouse with its Arne Jacobsen style furniture.

I love dollhouses! I don't let myself collect miniatures because I'm sure it would get out of control really fast, but I like to collect pictures of the miniatures I would buy :) There was a fun article in the New York Times last month on this topic: A Hobby Best Kept Small

I stared building my first dream dollhouse when I was 10 from a kit when I was ten. Thirteen years later its not done because I kept changing the decor. It's sitting in my parents basement. I have just now found the time to start working on it aging . I can't wait as there is a store in my new town that has light kits !

I still have the dollhouse that my great-uncle built for me. My favorite part was the miniature knick-knacks - a globe, hatboxes, a vase full of flowers. Totally explains the decorating style of my apartment...

My parents still have the dollhouse my dad built for me and my sister as kids. It's a piece I'd love to have if we ever move to a bigger house--there's definitely no room in this one!

I visited the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam a few years ago and they had a really cool exhibit with very elaborate dollhouses belonging to wealthy Dutch women during the 19th century. They were enormous, and incredibly detailed.

A few years back 1/12 scale dollhouses and related stuff was the top hobby in the US! At that time I made miniatures for dollhouses, and since then people have come a LONG way in getting very accurate and precise scale in miniatures. Before that, if you had an enlarging ray, the blown up mini would look thick and clunky next to the real item. These days, you could probably find nearly anything reproduced 1/12 scale that would look totally authentic -- but the cost can be much more than the full-sized real deal since working tiny is very difficult and time consuming.

I had a dollhouse for a while, but it always was only an excuse for getting teensy STUFF. So I kept my best stuff and sold the house. I have a shadowbox with the keepers. These include real but bitsy seashells (sea stars, sea horses, and other shells start out nearly microscopic and grow to the sizes we normally notice. Someone gathered the tiny ones.) I also have some absolutely amazing scale butterfiles from polymer clay -- a couple look like bits of dust until you magnify them!

There are (or were) really nice model kits for plastic copies of wooden kitchen chairs and the like from a company called Chrysenbon (I think.) These were intended to be painted and are an inexpensive alternative to the laboriously hand crafted options. I always thought a grouping of these hung on a wall would be cool, but I never did it.

Today dollhouses and miniatures are getting more and more realistic. Now you can get working televisions (yes, they really play movies) far more modern settings than horrible traditional Victorian, the Brinca Dada houses for example are fantastic. What lots of people forget is that while sure, you give a little girl a dollhouse, it's the adults who enjoy them far more. My room boxes have very adult settings that I wouldn't allow a child near in a million years.

The staff chats about this don't they? About how I will come in and tell you to shut up and stop posting about collecting. Seriously, the existence of one cool doll house, or even many doesn't mean you have to talk about collecting them. You could just talk about one. Really, you could.

I think you should keep talking about collecting just to piss off 'adventrising'.

Adventrising is right. I've been laughing since I read their comment. Forget about collections, they are materialistic and collect dust, and in this post sub-prime mortgage economy, none of us can even afford more than an apartment. There should be more articles about "the power of one."

On another note, I love this blog because you can say practically anything in the comments. That's what makes it interesting. I'm glad the editors of this site have allowed this kind of freedom. I stopped reading Design Sponge because you can only make positive comments. They are Happy Nazis.

I loved those Lundby dollhouses as a kid, tack så mycket Svensson! As a little architect the lights and furniture was so great (and I never had dolls either, just the house and furniture - in fact I built several dollhouses and cardboard houses).

If you are interested in miniatures, the Tom Bishop shows are always a great source for collecting AND inspiration. http://www.bishopshow.com/ I think they are the largest miniatures show and it's in the chicagoland area