Over the past few weeks, the piling has taken place for the foundations of the new shop.  As there will be flats above the shop, this has taken some time due to the depth required.

Pinling about to start. The portakabins and portaloo are already in situ in front of the old shop (still open, but this was taken early morning before we opened)

Concrete was then added to ground level and the bricks delivered ready for the walls to go up – over the next few weeks the look of the site will change quite a bit as the main shape of the building emerges. Our new shop will be in the typical red brick of the area, designed to match many of the existing buildings in Twyford.

Concrete base down and bricks delivered, ready to start building the walls.

Much excitement this week.

Our workshop has been very busy lately, with several projects on the go.  With over 30 years experience in building and decorating dolls houses, and many restoration projects having been undertaken, it’s worth bearing us in mind for building and decorating your dollshouse, even if you didn’t purchase it from us. We carry a wide range of papers and paint, roofing materials, and construction items,as well as a wide range of electirc lighting, so do pop in or phone is to discuss your requirements.

Recently we’ve built and decorated a variety of houses for customers and for display on our shelves.

House decorated internally and externally, ready to go to the customer

The above house was assembled from the kit, painted and decorated, with internal lighting installed.

If you remember our renovation project from earlier this year, this is now completed and back with the customer.  The outside of the house was painted and then ‘aged’ to make it look older.  The roof was was carefully thatched, so the period house is now completely different to look at.

Tudor House Renovation - Exterior

Inside, the house has been decorated, and electric lights installed.

Interior renovations

Meanwhile although we are still busy in our Workshop with customer renovations and builds, we are also building and decorating a few new display houses for our shop.

The old building at the front of our site, which many of our customers remember was a home furnishing shop for many years, has now been demolished.

The old building to the front of the site has been demolished

Work starts after Easter on the piling for the foundations of the new shop. Then building will start in earnest – the builders have promised the shop will be ready to fit out in the autumn, so we can be fully installed for the Christmas season in our new, larger shop.

We’d like to thank the owners and staff of La Fontana restaurant opposite (you can just see the signs in the photo above) who have kindly allowed us to use their facilities while our rebuild is in progress. If you’re making a trip to Twyford to see us and are making a day out of your visit, we highly recommend La Fontana for their delicious pizza.

For those of you who have visited our shop, you’ll know of the run-down ‘hut’ in front.  This used to be a shop, but had been empty for 10 years or so, and wasn’t in a conditon to safely use, so we set up ‘shop’ in the warehouse behind while we drew up and submitted plans for our new shop to be built.

Finally, Wokingham Council have granted us planning permission to pull this down and build our new shop, which will be much easier for our customers, being significantly bigger and on one floor, as well as more visible from the road!  You can have a look at the plans for the new Berkshire Dolls House shop - application number  F/2011/1877.

Another of our extremely talented artisans creates these very delicate baby mice in a walnut shell nest for us.

 Having spent time over Christmas trying to replicate the 3/4 walnut shells that she uses as the nest I can honestly say that she must go through hundreds of walnuts before cracking one in just the right way!

We’ve recently taken delivery of some absolutely fabulous dolls house people, and as fast as we’re putting them out on our shelves we’re having to ask for more.  The top sellers are the lady with a magazine, and the gentleman with his racing form, poised sitting on the toilet!  We don’t know if it’s an infantile sense of toilet humour or just the fact that the excellent detail that our artisan creator has put in to these models that appeals.  You can order these here: http://www.berkshiredollshousecompany.com/acatalog/People_and_Dolls.html

One of our customers has brought in an old Tudor style dolls house for a complete makeover.  We’ve stripped it down and are re-coating the walls.  The house will be re-wired, decorated and a new thatched roof will be added.  We will add more photos as we go.

Renovation project

 We have been very busy in the shop during the run up to Christmas, so we’re only now catching up with our Blog.

We are always pleased to support the Twyford Christmas Fayre which takes place on the first Friday of December, where the main High Street is closed to traffic and a multitude of stalls are set up with local traders, charities, tombolas, food and drink.

We had a stall in the High Street, as well as the shop around the corner in Wargrave Road being open.  Several thousand people attended, and we were kept very busy.

Berkshire Dollls House at Twyford Christmas Fayre

On the left, experiencing a quick gap between customers

Street Entertainers