Ever wished you could live like Barbie? Artist turns derelict building into life-size dolls house with huge wall of glass
Canadian sculptor Heather Benning has created the life-size dollhouse of her dreams out a derelict building.
Miss Benning, 32, discovered the tumble-down home in 2005 when she took a job as an artist in residence for the community of Redvers, Saskatchewan.
While driving to the nearest city of Brandon, Manitoba, to get art supplies she spotted the crumbling former home and pulled over to get a closer look. To anyone else, the house was a decrepit wreck, but to Heather it held a world of possibilities.
She said: 'When I saw the house through the windows, I saw a life sized dollhouse. I thought to myself, that should be the main project I work on while I'm in the area.
'Once I returned home from the supply trip I made contact with the landowners of the property and found out the house had been abandoned since the late 1960s and was suffering from substantial water damage.
'I met with the owners of the land at their farm and promised them that if they donated the house to me, that I would complete the project and would not leave them with a mess to deal with.'
The owners agreed immediately to donate the house to Heather so that she could make her dream of producing a real-life dollhouse come to life.
Immediately, she began demolishing the interior plaster, knocking down whatever plasterwork was soft and cracking.
Miss Benning said that she was haunted by abandoned houses and she looks on them as 'skeletons of the past'
Having previously worked for a building restoration company, Heather had plenty of acquired skills to complete the work. She removed 70 per cent of the walls, plus all of the ceilings.
Heather said: 'The roof required major attention. The entire house was shingled in Cedar. Because it was aesthetically integral to the project that the exterior of the house remained abandoned in appearance, I chose to recycle the shingles from the north side of the house - the wall that would get removed - and use the recycled shingles to replace what was missing or rotten on the roof.
'Once the roof was repaired I placed 8' PVC pipe cut in half on the top ridge of the roof. This acted as a ridge cap, but once painted with brass paint represented a piano hinge like one would see on a real dollhouse.'
Heather then began work on the interior, replacing the plaster and painting the house according to the colours she found beneath the rotting layers of wallpaper.
She also began collecting furniture and items with which to fill the house, looking specifically for things that would give it a traditional dollhouse feel.
Heather said: 'Abandoned houses have always haunted me. Not that long ago, in Saskatchewan, there was a farm nearly every quarter mile.
'Now in the prairies one can drive miles before they see any life, but often the skeletons of the past remain standing and wind torn.
'I wanted the interior of the house to appear the way it was when it was left, but the exterior to show the passage of time.
'I chose to close the house in with plexi glass because I wanted it to be inaccessible, and tomb-like - inaccessible in that one cannot enter a real dollhouse because of the scale, and tomb-like because it encapsulates a time and a lifestyle that no longer exists, and will never exist again.
'I wanted to capture a life with no internet, flat screen televisions, air conditioning, etc. When the telephone was the main contact to the rest of the world.'
Heather, with help from friends, worked on the house on and off for 18 months and spent around $15,000 on materials before unveiling the work to the public.
The furnishings were mostly collected locally from garage sales, auctions, and thrift stores and some of the furniture was donated by community members.
'The Dollhouse' is currently being represented by The Telephonebooth Gallery in Toronto.
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