At an impressive 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide this dolls house is truly something to behold. Have a look at its journey with us below.

Tolstoy dolls house - english grey-painted pine dolls house - Alexandra Tolstoy - second half 20th century

A brief history

Made from pinewood, this dolls house comprises of 9 rooms (now 10 with its newly converted attic), beautiful handcrafted staircases, and many portraits and pictures scatter its walls. It is difficult to pinpoint the exact age as there is not much history available online. One of the portraits however has the date ‘1906’ scribbled on the back. The house - now affectionately known as the Tolstoy House after its former owner Alexandra Tolstoy - was bought at auction by its new owner in 2020, and came to us for renovation in March 2021.

An early design of the kitchen

 

Designing

Designing is an important part of the process. After being given some initial ideas and a general theme, we got to work. With regular input from our client, we were able to collaborate and come up with something fitting for the character of the house, and also to the family it would be living with. Here is an early design of the kitchen; you’ll see later on how the design was changed slightly, which is often the case as a restoration progresses.

  • Renovation process on the Tolstoy house

    Stripping & priming process

  • Planning the Tolstoy library

    Planning the library gallery

  • Early stages of hallway restoration

  • Making the bathroom panels

The Dolls House Hospital - dolls house restoration suffolk UK -The Library - Tolstoy dolls house - english grey-painted pine dolls house - Alexandra Tolstoy - second half 20th century

The Library

Complete with spiral staircase, real crystal chandelier, taxidermy wall features and even a secret passage… This room was one of the most challenging (which we relished, of course). Take a look below for some insight into the designing and building of this room.

  • Renovation process on the Tolstoy house

    5 of the rooms feature real wood parquet and herringbone flooring.

  • Planning the Tolstoy library

    Each floor is like a puzzle, made up of hundreds of tiny pieces.

  • There are a lot of alterations and trimming that needs to be done throughout to ensure everything fits together how it should.

  • Once together its time for the staining and polishing. This happens over the course of several days and each floor has around 300 coats of french polish. Yes, three zero zero!

The Dolls House Hospital - dolls house restoration suffolk, UK - The Theatre - Tolstoy dolls house - english grey-painted pine dolls house - Alexandra Tolstoy - second half 20th century

The Theatre

This roof was once an empty space, but empty spaces and blank canvases lead way for the imagination to create something special.

  • Renovation process on the Tolstoy house

    Bedroom 1

  • Creating custom wallpaper

    This wallpaper was a special request. We used the reference image given to us and recreated the design in-house using photoshop.

  • Bedroom 2

  • Both bedrooms were based on real rooms from a family home.