When I chatted with Jim Marcus about the Little Belle, he commented that it’s hard to paint a house like this because you have to be a really good painter to do justice to all the small details. He pointed out that when the house is all white, the shadows serve as a sort of accent color. He suggested painting the Little Belle’s shingles, stairs, door, and base in shades of gray, and leaving the rest white.

You can see the effect in his Russian Embassy house, which is based on the Westerfeld house at 1198 Fulton Street in San Francisco. (At one time it was a nightclub run by Russians, NOT the former location of the Russian consulate — all the mini magazines get this wrong!) More pics of this dollhouse can be found on the James D. Julia auction website.

I liked that idea and was planning on it (because I am *not* a good painter!) until I saw the Texas Showcase Little Belle with its brown shingles, and for some reason I really liked that. The Haze paint I used on the house has a tan tint to it and I thought brown would go better with that than gray.

I got a rich brown Behr sample named Chocolate Truffle. Home Depot had just started offering samples in other finishes besides flat, so I tried it in eggshell for a bit of a sheen.

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First things first: someone who read about my Little Belle tipped me off to the one pictured at the right, which was sold in a silent auction in the Texas Showcase of Miniatures in 2012. (See here for details — I got the poster’s permission to repost the photo, though it’s been so long she might not remember! I found this in November 2014, just never blogged about it.) I emailed the Texas Showcase to ask where they got the house but they didn’t get back to me.

This brings the tally up to 10 known Little Belles, out of a production run of about 20. I still hope to uncover more of them! If you own or know of a Little Belle dollhouse that isn’t mentioned here or here, please contact me.

Anyway, since I bought the Little Belle almost two years ago, she’s been patiently waiting her turn. I actually did a little work on her last summer but didn’t get too far before I had to pack everything up for the move. Here, finally, are those photos.

This is how the house looked when I got it. There were three things I wanted to address before painting: repair a crunched corner on the left side of the roof, re-glue the peeling siding, and replace the ugly hinges.

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