Back in the mid 90s, I assembled a wooden doll house with Yanni, my oldest child, 4 at the time. I found the project so engrossing that I made several kits of furniture after finishing the house. I wanted the project to go on an on. . .

This summer, I pulled out a bunch of kits my mother had bought years ago for the children. One of them was a house you could assemble using brick and mortar. She had bought the dollhouse kit for Xay, my second born, to design a castle. I was intimidated by the idea of designing a castle. I couldn’t figure out how to make a house like on the box, let alone wrap my mind around round towers, turrets, etc. So, though we may have measured out how to lay the foundation on the provided platform back when we got the kit, we never proceeded with the house.

I wanted to remedy that this summer, and so we set out to make the house. Talk about an exercise in cooperation and patience! We copied the diagram best we could, laying out the foundational bricks. We mixed the sand mortar mix with water, and figured out how to lay bricks. We called Xay in to help at one point, but for the most part it was a project for the babies and me. Bricklaying was addictive. I wanted to keep going, and I ended up laying bricks where I should have set windows. Our project became very mortar-covered, and slightly crooked.

We let the house dry before we proceeded. The next time we worked on the house, Yanni helped us. We agreed we needed to tear the house down and start over. Thankfully, the mortar is water soluble, so we wet the house to pull the bricks apart. This time we glued the house to the foundation. Yanni worked on one side of the house while I worked on the other side. Imani did the ornamental work–the archways for the front porch. Joy laid bricks across the back wall, while Esteban scraped excess mortar. Even Chanya could spread mortar on a brick so I could lay it.

We worked on the house whenever we had time. Now it is ready for a roof. We still need to tile the roof. If we work on it daily, the house project should be done in about a week. We may drag it out by taking our time.

Structurally, our building is solid, but we have too many bricks on the front of the house. We make up for gaps in other places by mortar. We would do things differently if we started over again. It is not perfect, but it has been a great learning experience. When we finish this house, I’ll display it on the breakfront next to the other house. I neither want to make it again nor do I want to let the children play with it.

We have a wooden dollhouse kit beckoning us from the laundry room shelves. We have only just begun our dollhouse making adventure.