3. Name and exterior

Next I realised that my dolls house couldn't just be called "My Dolls House" forever. It needed an identity, and it needed it quickly.

(please keep reading below)

First I changed the colour scheme of the exterior from the original jolly sky blue to dirty peach, using acrylic and textured sandy medium.
I'm still considering painting the door and window frames black, like that cool old house on Hawley Road in Camden - which, alas, has since been whitewashed... or the lyrics to Prince's U Got The Look ("Color U Peach & Black!").

In pro...

Facade finished (now comes with monsters!)

I ended up naming the house "Number 12 Falsgrave Road". It was very serendipitous. See, that week a packet I'd sent to a client on Falsgrave Road in Scarborough got returned to me (the client had moved house and forgot to update their addy on etsy). "Falsgrave" thus had a fictional, false, dead-end ring to me, and I couldn't be sure it even existed. It also sounds like a dark stretch of the street past the graveyard where kids are not allowed to play. It was perfect.
("Number 12" came from the ancestral Blacks family residence at the Grimmauld place. Fangirl.)

I made little street signs, which placed the house in Blackfriars in London, keeping with the "black" theme. I can picture the house looming on the bank of the murky river Thames, where, during the low tide, the inhabitants go beach-combing for old bones, shards of 17 century pottery, and satan only knows what other exciting objects.

"Fly-posters will be prosecuted!"

This side of the house features slogans, tart cards and a few of my favourite band, film and activist posters.
I made the yellow "Cat Found" note after the actual one I had put up in my (then) north London hood when my cat adopted me back in 2008. The little tabs have my number on them.

Then I (once again) visited the amazing Small Stories exhibition during a candle-lit evening tour, where I spotted the bikes attached to the exterior of Roma Hopkinson's house:

Inspired by that, I decided my house needed a "ghost bike" to help the house feel yet more haunted, and thanks to the pound shop, here it is:

The exterior is definitely still a WIP. I have hacked windows and air vents into the outer walls, and the door now boasts a bell and a gargoyle:

The little bat came from my artist partner, in whose collection it has been kicking around since the 70ies, found in this old board game:

Hoarders of the world unite! Everything eventually comes in handy in the miniature world... ;)