When we first decided to start collecting Sylvanian families for my daughter I spent ages trawling the internet and fell in love with the Oakwood Manor House. At the time it was out of our price range and I really wanted a burgundy roofed one and the new ones at the time seemed to be blue.
So I was thrilled after lots of internet trawling to find a collection of SF items on ebay which included the burgundy roofed house. We bid and won the set, and then travelled the 70 or so miles to collect it.
The house was reasonably physically sound, just a few bits of railing missing here and there. However it had some hideous decoration with garish wallpapers and felt glued to all the floors (most of it was bright orange). So the first project, to turn it into a fab house as a Christmas present for my daughter) was born.
Sadly I don’t think I took any pictures of it in it’s sad state, but I certainly remember the process. Hours of scraping to remove the top layers of paper and felt. Then rubbing, soaking and scraping to remove the glue. We actually bought a sticky stuff remover to help get the glue off. It took a long time to have the house back to ‘the bare bones’ but finally it was.
Then the search for wallpapers and accessories began. I fell in love with the decorative papers from the V&A Museum which were available in a set from my local craft shop. I felt they fitted well with the style of the house and had great fun decorating. I also decided to keep the floors bare as I liked the wood board effect of them and just used felt offcuts and fabric book samples (out of season ones given away free by a local fabric store) as rugs.
Accessories were a mixture of those we had gathered and searches for items we wanted (I definitely wanted a stand alone stove and the roll top desk and chair). I also tried my best to make accessories. However my sewing skills are very limited and I didn’t get much further than some simple pillows, duvets and curtains.
So our Sylvanian Oakwood Manor was born, and still to this day it is my favourite SF property. In fact it developed my love of Sylvanians so much that I now sell new and used Sylvanians: New and pre-loved Sylvanian Families
