IT has been busier than ever this week for the ‘resident’ dolls house enthusiast at St Margaret’s Hospice charity shop in Minehead.
After just five frantic weeks to completely decorate and furnish a beautiful vintage residence cum shop, Marian Matthews suddenly found herself in the middle of a property boom!
The first house quickly sold for £325 but people than began ringing the shop to ask if any more houses would be available before Christmas.
Marian did have a surprise – or two, or three or maybe even four, up her sleeve!Practically a whole village in fact!
She had already been working on another house, a Georgian-style residence. There was not enough time to decorate it, but she did manage to quickly stitch three small rugs for it and add some more furniture.
The inside decorating problem was then swiftly solved by Marian supplying do-it -yourself wallpaper, so that house is now in the shop.
But then another dolls house was donated, prompted by the publicity in the Free Press last week. This is a large 1980s’ house which Marian hopes will be in the shop for Christmas too.
“But there’s more!.” she said.
“A kind person on eBay has just donated a gorgeous little Dutch house but this certainly needs some home improvements so will have to wait.”
The shop’s manager Christine Slade has been delighted with the property boom: “There is now a new village grown up in Minehead, and it’s in our shop! We hope people will come and visit it!”
And Marian added: “The people who buy the Georgian-style house will have the pleasure of decorating it themselves – and then I can get on with the third house.”