Strawberry Shortcake Berry Happy Home

***This was actually last week's post. But between being sick and then being very busy with orders, I never got around to adding the pics so that I could publish this post. So here it is, better late than never.**** 

Today I went and bought myself the Berry Happy Home that my local Flea Market had for sale. I first noticed it a few weeks ago when I was there buying Monster High dolls. It was pretty exciting to actually see one of these houses again in person. I had only seen one in real life before - this was years ago at a dollhouse shop in a nearby town. Naturally, I felt the immediate impulse to buy it, but I told myself NO and went off and forgot about it. When I came back to the flea market to pick up some more MH dolls,  I was once again checking out the Berry Happy Home. It was up high on a shelf, a little hidden by the merchandise around it. 

For awhile, I kept myself convinced that I had no space for it. I really used to want that house. What SSC collector doesn't? It is just so darn cute and the furniture that was made for it is just adorable. I ended up putting it pretty much put it out of my mind. Mostly. And then last night, I got to thinking about. Not just "sigh, how neat is that house and wouldn't it be neat to one day have it." No, it was more like "I have to have that house." I started thinking of everything that I could do with it. Decorating it for the holidays. Making clay food and other paraphernalia. And the price was definitely something that I could justify! 

There were 2 concerns in front of me. 1, was obviously, where the heck was I gonna put it? And 2, was is it still there? After much debate and mental arguing with myself, I let myself believe that there was a good spot for it, though I worried that it was too tall. But, by the time I went to bed I had talked myself out of it again. This is where it is important in every collectors life to have the supportive enablers that enrich your collecting experience to talk some sense right back into you.

So I found myself heading to town the following afternoon. Luckily, the house was still up there on the shelf, half buried by plushies. The house was too large to sit in the cart, so it rode on top. The house was definitely faded and the color turned. It was dirty, but appeared to have most of the basic house parts. It was missing the front window, the chimney, the mail box and the greenery. That's not a big deal as replacement parts are relatively easy to find. (You just have to find the best deal. Prices vary from "hey that's a great deal!" to "eek, I can wait.") After setting it on my cart, 2 different people stopped to ask about it. I got the feeling that they both would have grabbed it themselves if they could have. I felt pretty darn lucky that the house lasted as long as it did so that I could buy it!

The house did come with a bag of furniture. Unfortunately, I will only be using 2 of the pieces. 1 is the Rose Petal Place vanity (I already have it, so I will most likely sell it) the toilet, (which I do not need. I will sell it as well as I don't enjoy bathrooms for my dolls)  a hutch (yay!!!) and a yellow mirror. I did glance on eBay after I bought the house to check out furniture prices. I found the kitchen set for an excellent price that I could not resist, so I did go ahead and order that. The kitchen is the most important place in the house!

I decided to start cleaning the house around 6 that evening and the best place to clean it ended up being the kitchen. I placed trash bags on the floor and got to work. Now, I admit that I didn't inspect the house super closely. I saw it was faded, yellowed and dirty. But it wasn't until I sat down to clean it that I saw how it wasn't just dirty. It was filthy and smelled HORRIBLE.  Let me say that these pics do NOT show just how dirty this house was.

There was no doubt in my mind the house had mold. The best way to kill mold is white vinegar. I poured some into a bowl of water and mixed in a little kitchen Lysol. I ended up using a wash cloth to clean it. I felt it was best to deal with the various shapes of the house. And I was right, except when it came to getting into teeny tiny spaces such as the base of the porch railings and that adorable wood texture, which proved to be quite hard to get clean. I had previous gotten a set of cheap tooth brushes for such a job as this, but where are they after the move? Who knows. Q tips were the next best option. They were pretty good at getting into all the areas that I needed to clean, though I really think a tooth brush would have worked much, much better. I still need to go back over a few places.

The more I cleaned, the more I recognized the dreadful rodent smell. Wherever this poor dollhouse had been stored, it was definitely a play area for rodents. :/ I honestly was really gagging at one point trying to clean it. It really wasn't as bad as it could have been, but for some reason, it was really getting to me. At one point, some hour later, I was starting to feel concerned that I wasn't going to be able to get it clean and clear of that dreadful smell. It was when I was cleaning the bottom of the house, with all of those nooks and crannies and areas cut up by plastic to give it a secure base - you know what I mean - that I concluded that there was simply no good way to clean it, even after I switching to the foaming bathroom Lysol. I finally decided to haul this massive house to the bathroom and stick it under the shower head while I scrubbed on it. This was actually a really good idea! I l hauled it to the bathroom and into the bathtub. I turned the shower on warm to hot temperature and let it just sit under the water for a few minutes. Then  I reached in with my gloved hand, trying to hold the shower curtain as best as I could to keep the water off the floor (it didn't work real well - a section of the rug got soaked. As did part of my pants) while I scrubbed. I kept rotating the house, hoping the water would get into crevices that I couldn't reach with any cleaning tool and would flush out all that disgusting grime. It was at this moment I have to admit that I was feeling - just for a moment - buyers regret. It did pass pretty quickly.  I'm really not sure how long I did this step. I finally decided at one point that that was the best that I was going to be able to do, and shut the water off. 

It would have been a good idea to simply let the house drip dry there in the tub. But, at that point I was pretty much done with working on it for the night (it was after 8) and since I needed to clean the bathroom after what I just put it through (it was covered in grime) and the kitchen floor, for that matter, so I just wanted to move it out of there. I made the great decision to just haul the dripping wet house down the hallway, through the living room and back into the kitchen.  Mopping all the floors and cleaning the tub went quicker than I expected. Once that was done, I took a towel and dried my house inside and out. Talk about relief when I didn't smell any more of that foul odor! Maybe it was saved! The real truth would be revealed once it was moved to its final resting place. Where it was going, we keep that door closed to keep the cats out of there as it's my sewing room/doll room and no furbie needs to be let loose in there unsupervised. My fear was that the door would be closed all night and would wreak to high heaven in the morning.

Now, before I get ahead of myself, there's a few more issues that my house has that I need to go over. The floors. They are in dreadful shape. I'm not really sure if the house originally had flooring - from pics it appears that the kitchen and bathroom did. My house has the remains of grime stained glue all over the floors. The exception is the bathroom ,which has a nasty floor still in place. 

Again, I'm not sure if that flooring is original or not. It's not staying either way as it's just gross. Ideally, I would need to spend a great amount of time outside with Goo Gone to clean all of this up. That's something to deal with later. Another small issue is that the turned beigy orange base of my house is stained in places with mildew. There's no active mold. It's just staining. But it looks pretty bad. At one point, I need to paint it a color to match the original. 

Now, the place that was determined for my house to fit is, as I said, in my little sewing room. The intended place would be under the BJD shelf and partially behind the storage bench that sits under the window and holds my hoard of knit/denim/suiting fabrics. The houses ended up being a good fit in width and depth. But.....it was too tall to fit. Which was exactly what I was worried about. The good thing is that we can simply raise the shelves for it to fit as planned. :D :D :D

The happy news is that upon opening the door to the sewing room today, after my house was in there all night, there was no bad smell! The house smells a little old, which is totally fine by me. Old I can handle. Moldy and rodenty, I can't. My biggest fear has been assuaged. 

The fun is going to start soon as I plan out how to fix up Strawberry's new house. She can pick out flooring, maybe even wall paper, and brain storm furniture. I'm really excited and I honestly cannot believe that I have my very own Berry Happy Home!