Today, we went to Sheffield Antiques Emporium for tea and cake, and we came out with a vintage Lundby dollhouse! I wasn’t planning on buying a dollhouse, never mind one that cost £81 and came complete with a swimming pool, a car, a garage and four huge bags of accessories, but there you go, such is the power of tiny things!
Dating the Gothenberg dollhouse
After much searching on the internet, I think my new dollhouse is a Lundby Gothenburg from around 1975. According to various sources (all of which are listed at the bottom of this page), in 1974 Lundby started selling the Gothenburg dollhouse with a garage and a basement, and the company started selling cars this year too. In 1975 the dollhouse began to feature a removable balcony (which mine has, albeit a broken one) and a swimming pool.
Apparently, Lundby manufactured the fire place with the white slanted roof (below) until 1975, so this dollhouse can’t be any later than that.
Whatever the exact date, it’s definitely a 1970s dollhouse as what other era would have such incredible wallpaper? I grew up in the 1980s in a house with wallpaper very similar to these from the dollhouse below. These images should give you inspiration if you’re planning to update (or back date!) a retro dollhouse.
The bottom right picture is the balcony flooring but the rest are wallpaper from the dollhouse rooms.
If you already have a Gothenburg dollhouse and want to update it, this website has an excellent template for the lounge (the room with the stairs in it) to make measuring your wallpaper super simple.
I’ve made three retro wallpapers which you can download for free and fit in your 1970s dollhouse. If you want to make your own then check out my blog post featuring a tutorial on how to make dollhouse wallpaper in Canva, plus 15 different wallpaper designs to download and print.
Unpacking the Gothenberg dollhouse furniture and accessories
Unpacking the house was like returning to my 1980s childhood, the 10,000 shades of brown and orange, the floral prints, the wooden panelling – the kitchen accessories looked so familiar that I’m sure I must have had some in my dollhouse when I was little.
Lundby is 1:18 scale, which means every 1 inch in a dollhouse equals 18 inches in real life, it is smaller than most standard 1:12 scale dollhouses, but the bonus is the house has more rooms than my 1:12 dollhouse but takes up the same amount of space.
The bathroom
The bathroom features a sunshine yellow three piece suite with wood panelling backing. I love the bath tap, it’s probably one of the most ’70s items in the house. The bath, sink, toilet and towel rail are all on separate panels and I’ve seen online that there may have been a matching shower at some point too, like this one on Etsy.
The iconic yellow bookcase
Lundby is a Swedish brand and this is clear in the design of some of the furniture, particularly the bookcase, which looks like it’s come straight out of the Ikea catalogue.
The modern equivalent is this Lundby bookcase from Amazon, it comes with accessories, but definitely lacks the ’70s charm of the retro one.
The playroom
My kids decided to make the large split-level room at the top of the house the playroom, yet opted to not put much furniture in it, except a grand piano with a TV on top, of course!
The kitchen
The kitchen features some more epic ’70s furniture – the two main pieces are a dishwasher and oven with shelves and cupboard above them. A quick Google shows that it looks as though there should be a piece with a sink as well, like this one on Etsy.
The accessories include pots, pans, plates and cutlery, and some random pieces of food, including a roast turkey!
The set did come with a large yellow dining table, but unfortunately no chairs, so the kids are using the dining table as a desk. If I was going to replace the dining table then I’d go for the below pink and white Lundy set, but I need to decide if I want to spend any more money on the house first!
The living room
The living room, or lounge, is my favourite room as it’s so cosy and features a beautiful staircase and balustrade. The fireplace has electrics, so must glow once it’s all hooked up, and comes with a tiny basket of wood.
The four red and yellow armchairs go perfectly with the funky coffee table, but there wasn’t enough room in the lounge to fit all four of them in with the teal sofa.
The bedroom
I’m not sure if this is the bedroom or not, but the kids choose the room on the right to be a cosy bedroom. This room extends out onto the balcony, which is in need of fixing. The white bed was a bonus, as I’d just recently bought one for £8 for my other dollhouse, so it’s handy to have another one.
The garage, car and swimming pool
At the bottom of the house is a garage, with red doors that need fixing back on, inside is a beautiful wooden car complete with a personalised number plate. Next to the garage is a large recreational room which doesn’t have a purpose yet, but would make a great place for the swimming pool or a huge playroom.
Accessories
The dollhouse came with four bags of accessories, from clocks, to rugs, to lighting.
I love the detail on the grandfather clock – a window is reflected in what would be the glass on the front of the clock.
The house came with two TVs, I’m not sure the one with the photo on it is original as it doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the house and it is so different in style to the other TV. I definitely recognise the little girl in the photo though, but I’ve no idea which TV show it is. Both these TVs reminded me that TV screens didn’t used to be flat!
The lights are the most intimidating part of the house, I’ve wired dollhouse lights once before and it was a bit of a disaster. But they do come with instructions and lots of wires and retro plugs, so hopefully my multi-talented father-in-law Neil will give me a hand wiring them.
Buying this dollshouse was a spur of the moment decision, and I’m not sure whether I’m going to keep it as it is, keep it and renovate it, sell it as it is, or split the sets and sell it. All I know is the longer I keep it, the less likely my kids will be to part with it!
You can see the chaos that ensued when I let my kids help me unpack this Lundby dollhouse in the video below!
Sources
http://www.mckendry.net/LUNDBY%20DOLLHOUSE/LUNDBY.htm
http://maisons-de-poupees.e-monsite.com/pages/maisons-lundby
https://vintagelundby.blogspot.com/search?q=Lundby+Gothenburg