A Barbie Doll House Is Special, Part 2

Four-shelf wire shelving unit used as the 

frame for the Barbie house.

The pandemic hit, and Indiana shut down just as I had gotten an idea for how to build a new Barbie house to replace the old one.

What could I do?

I was working at home like a large portion of the country.

So, like a large portion of the country, I turned to Amazon and ordered what I thought I would need. Everything arrived quickly, and then it sat in my house for more than a year.

I had other projects to finish, and by the time I completed those, I had returned to working in my office cubicle.

Finally, more than a year later, I opened the boxes.

One four-shelf wire shelving unit on wheels, a box of 15 white foam core boards, various rolls of Contact Paper and 5x7 picture mats.

Testing the zip ties.

After assembling the shelves, I tested my theory that zip ties could be used for assembly. They worked perfectly.

On to construction!

Unlike the original Barbie house, this one would be three stories with a rooftop garden. I had Contact Paper for the exterior and interior walls as well as the ceiling. At this point, I wasn't sure if I was going to use the foam core board for the flooring or if I was going to use wood panels from a hardware store. I would have to test to see.

But first the walls.

I cut the side panels with an X-Acto knife, then covered the exterior with a brick facade and the interior with the appropriate wallpaper and trimmed as necessary.

One of the side walls.

Interior side wall.

Interior side wall.

By the time I started attaching the front panels, I realized I forgot to cut windows out. Oops! I would have to think of a Plan B for that.

Exterior front, sadly 

missing windows.

Interior first floor walls.

Interior second floor walls.

Interior third floor walls.

I covered the roof in strips of silver duct tape. Then I tested the idea of a foam core board floor and decided it would work perfectly. So, I had to order more Contact Paper.

Roof covered in duct tape.

Once it arrived, I finished the floors and attached them to the shelves.

Interior first floor.

Interior second floor.

Interior third floor.

Furniture updates would be next.

to be continued

A Barbie Doll House Is Special

When I was about 5 or 6 years old, I got the best Christmas present ever. It was a homemade Barbie doll house complete with homemade furniture, made mostly by my mother and grandfather. I loved it!

I played with that house for years--long after society says I was too old to play with Barbies.

I didn't care. I had that house, and it was perfect.

When I was about 8 or 9, I got a Barbie Town House. Now I had two houses for my Barbies, and they could visit each other. But the Town House wasn't as well-constructed as the one Mom made, and it collapsed over time. The furniture was still good, so I moved some of it into the homemade house.

Eventually, when I was in college, Mom moved that homemade house to the attic. I was devastated. It had become a part of my bedroom, like the lights and ceiling fan. It didn't belong in the attic!

When we moved from the farm to Angleton, I insisted it come with us. Mom was not pleased about this decision, but I would not be swayed. So, it sat--fully furnished with Barbies--in my Angleton bedroom. My cats enjoyed climbing in it, and I would shoo them off. By this time, the house was almost 20 years old. I wasn't sure if the weight of my 10-pound cats would be too much.

But it survived.

Then we moved to Indiana. Again, I insisted the house come with us. This time, when one of the cats jumped in it, the house was no longer able to hold. The second floor collapsed. My heart broke. I had had this house since elementary school. What was I going to do? Where were my Barbies going to live?

It took me a year to gather up the emotional strength to throw out my poor, broken Barbie house. Before I did, I took measurements and decided I would build another one just like it. But there was a problem with that idea.

I'm not a woodworker by any means. And we no longer owned the tools it would take to put together a wooden Barbie house.

I would have to come up with a plan for a house I could build.

After several suggestions from Mom, some friends and not-terribly-helpful Google searches, I stumbled upon an idea.

And then the pandemic happened.

to be continued...

10 Years

Nana, with a twinkle in her eye

photo by me

It has been 10 years since Nana, my grandmother, died. I've written about her before, and I've been thinking about her a lot lately. With 500,000 people dead from COVID in the past year, death is close to many people.

I am glad I have not had to worry about Nana getting COVID. I am glad I have not had to fight to get her vaccinated. I am glad she did not have to see the callousness of the Trump Administration toward the sick and grieving.

But that does not mean I am glad she's not here.

I miss her so, so much. I miss talking with her about my day. I miss her undying support and belief in me.

I miss her teasing, her laughter, her smile. I miss hearing her talking on the phone with her friends.

Because she lived with us all of my life, I have so many more memories of her than I do of Daddy and Papaw.

Once, when I was still in high school, a friend of mine and I drove to a nearby town to go to Walmart. Nana was also in that town running errands, and she spotted us in Walmart. Her face was bright with excitement, and she almost ran to us.

"Guess what," she asked us.

"What?" we said.

"I was just in a car wreck," she said, grinning from ear to ear.

Naturally, my friend and I were horrified.  "Are you hurt? What happened?"

"Oh, this woman hit the back of my car, and I spun in a circle through the intersection."  She moved her hand in a circular motion, still grinning.

Nana still watches over me

photo by Mom

"But you're okay?" I asked.

"I'm fine." Then, she looked at me and said, "Oh, Sara, that was fun."

That was Nana.  The kind of person who could be involved in a simple car accident where no one was hurt and see the positive.

When I hit a deer driving home at night that winter, she only wanted to know if I was okay. After I assured her that I was, and that the deer had even run off, seemingly unhurt, I said, "I don't think the car is damaged either."

"I don't care about the car, Sara. Cars can be replaced. You can't."

She could put things in perspective like no one else, and that has helped me deal with all the stress of the things she's missed over the last 10 years.

Also, after hitting that deer, she teased me about it. "If you see a deer limping around here, that's the one you hit." Her eyes danced when she said it.

That sense of humor has helped me deal with her loss, too.  But I still miss her.

35 Years

Daddy in about 1978 or 1979.

photographer unknown

It's been thirty-five years since my daddy died. There's a lot I don't remember about him. It's weird knowing that most of my stories about him are second-hand ones told to me by Mom or Nana or other relatives.

Here's what I do remember. We used to have an above-ground pool by my grandmother's house. It had yellow sides and was about three feet deep. You had to climb the ladder to get in. Unless you were Daddy. He climbed over the sides. Every time.

Daddy was a good swimmer.  He could swim underwater for what seemed like forever. In reality it was probably only a minute or two, but he would let me climb on his back and ride while he swam around. I can still remember the way the water beaded up on his back.

He used to take me with him sometimes to his favorite beer joint in town. All the old men there would buy me Cokes and M&Ms and tell each other stories. I'm sure none of those stories were fully on the side of truth. I wish I could remember them, but I was too busy eating chocolate to pay much attention. It's possible they played cards or dominos, but again, chocolate clouds my memory.

He built me a treehouse one afternoon because I asked for it. Before I left for school, I said I wanted a treehouse. When I came home, I had one. It occurred to me only later (much, much later) that he was only home because he was sick. I cannot imagine how exhausted building that treehouse made him, but he did it. And it wasn't poorly built either. It lasted for years.

His was the first funeral I remember attending. It rained. Not a heavy rain, but enough to be noticed.

Because he was a Marine Corps veteran, his coffin was draped in the flag. I remember at least two Marines were at the funeral, and they folded the flag and presented it to Mom. I didn't fully understand the significance of that at the time.

After the funeral, when people were still visiting and reminiscing, Mom asked me and my niece to take the flag to the car. We were almost there when footsteps came pounding up behind us. It was the Marines!

"We folded that wrong," one of them said and took the flag.

The stripes were visible and not the stars. Being only eight, I had no idea there was a right way and a wrong way to fold a flag. I still wonder if that's true for every country, or if it's an American thing.

The Marines quickly refolded the flag--stars out--and handed it back to us. It felt less solemn that time. But I think Daddy would have gotten a kick out it.