The Tomy Smaller Homes dollhouse (also known as “Smaller Home and Garden”) is a split-level ranch that looks a lot like the Brady Bunch house from the outside, with a distinctive 1970s style to it. I never had one of these as a kid and don’t remember any of friends having one, either. In fact, I didn’t learn about this house until around 2002, when I saw it and some of the furniture that went with it on eBay.

That’s when I realized that I had some Tomy furniture — a sectional sofa, coffee table, lamp, and entertainment center with a removable television, given to me by my grandmother as a birthday gift. I’d been using the furniture in my first dollhouse for years, but it was slightly too small (3/4″ scale, I later learned) so all but the TV, lamp, and an end table had been relegated to my “spare parts” bin.

When I learned there was a house out there that went with my living room, as well as several other gloriously groovy furniture sets, I became borderline obsessed. The stuff sold for high prices on eBay and I was sure I’d be able to find it cheaper than that, maybe at a garage sale or thrift store. I started scouring Craigslist and Goodwill stores.

In 2003, after I’d been looking for a year or so, I lucked out… or so I thought. Someone on Craiglist was selling a Tomy house plus furniture for a good price. She said she and her sister had played with the dollhouse as children and she recently found it in the closet at her mom’s house and wanted it to go to a good home. She was about an hour’s drive away, but I was willing to make the drive. I planned to pick it up over the weekend.

The next day I received an apologetic email from the seller. Her sister had found out she was planning to sell the dollhouse and wanted it. On the one hand, I could relate — if it had been my toy as a child and I found out my sister was selling it for a measly fifteen dollars, I would have been annoyed, too. But I was disappointed, because I really wanted that house.

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