Antique German Hacker Dolls House Restoration - Part Three

 Continuing with the restoration of my lovely old German Hacker dolls house, next job was to construct a replacement balcony. Now that a replacement door has been made (see last post), this house now desperately needs a balcony to sit in front of the balcony door!

The original is long gone sadly. 

Research suggested the balcony on this house should be balustraded, with a curved portion in the middle of the run. A little bit out of my woodworking capabilities, so instead I constructed a simple straight balcony using balustrade remnants from an old dolls house ( I have kept them for years & just knew they would come in useful one day). 🙂

After some jiggling, sawing & gluing, I managed to construct a reasonable length of balcony out of the remnants. Not perfect but adequate enough. 

With additions of a wooden floor, lots of glue, wood filler & paint, it came up a treat. 

It did take a while to mix up acrylic paint to match the original green frontage trim, but got there in the end. 

Next, some light sanding to give illusion of age, then finally it was glued into place. 

Am quite pleased with the result, this lovely old house is now coming along!

 And so the restoration continues…next in Part Four is the doorbell. 

Antique German Hacker Dolls House Restoration - Part Two

Restoration continues on my antique Christian Hacker dolls house. 

Where the door should be, the previous owner had glued a thick pane of glass which is now too difficult to remove, and could potentially create a lot of damage if I tried to do so. So I decided to create a replacement mock door to slot in front instead. Research showed that the balcony door should be similar in design as the front door, but with an upper glass pane, so this is what I attempted to do.

A scaled plan was first created on paper. 

Then the door was created using jelutong wood and wood glue. The lower panel's edges were chamfered with sandpaper. 

The wood filler helped to add to the required texture, then where it had been applied it was sanded well.

Next, layers of acrylic paints in various mixed shades were added to bring the colour up to as near to the colour of the front door as possible. 

Pencil crayons were used for highlighting around the panels, as seen on the front door. It was then finally sanded gently. 

I was chuffed to bits with the result!

 On completion I gave it a good coat of wax polish, then buffed it to a shine. The simple handle was created from old jewellery bits, aged with paint & fixed in place. The back of the door was given several coats of off-white paint and sanded well. 

Then the door was fixed into place, in front of the glass. 

The effect that I had been aiming for was to make the replacement balcony door look like it had always been there, and the result was about as near as I could get  it. 

Next on “The Restoration List” is a replacement balcony...so watch this space for Part Three!

Restoration On The Antique German Christian Hacker Dolls House Begins - Part One

 I started restoration of this dolls house back at the beginning of August, and over the past few weeks I have been logging its journey on my Instagram account (vintagektminiatures). However, for those of you not on Instagram, I will repeat those posts on here. 

My lovely antique German Christian Hacker dolls house is now out of storage & restoration has begun. Woodworm was rife though, and it has taken several treatments to sort over a considerable period of time. The many worm holes have now been filled with wood filler, so if any new holes appear I know that I will have to treat the house once again with woodworm killer. 

The house is split into three floors & comprises of five separate removable sections. The very top of the roof also lifts off. All original papers are still there but some areas are in poor condition. 

I have managed to erase some of the crinkles out of the papers, & found wallpaper syringes useful for that task. Hopefully furniture will help to hide some of the more damaged areas. 

Above you can see the ground floor that has the kitchen, a central hall with stairs, plus dining room. Each room has a connecting opening door. 

I particularly love the kitchen’s built-in dresser & range, and I think this is my favourite room at the moment. 

This is the middle floor that contains two rooms with a connecting door. Each of these rooms have a back window. The left room will be my drawing room, and the right room will be an adult's bedroom. 

The top floor has a further two rooms, plus a connecting door.  The larger room will be another bedroom, and the smaller room will be the nursery. As you can see in above photo, there is a lift- off frontage.  

Under the base you can see the model number 138/6 M written in pencil & “Made In Germany” in ink, alongside a faint Christian Hacker trademark. 

There is a missing exterior door & balcony from the frontage of the second floor. Previous owner has simply replaced that missing door with a pane of glass but am currently pondering on how to reinstall a door & balcony. 

Am also hoping to restore the doorbell too & get it working again if I can figure out how to! Methinks this dolls house will be one of those long term projects & I love it.

Restoration Part Two to follow shortly...

What A Mad World We Live In At Times!

 

Yesterday, there was a bit of drama at the Haddenham Antique Fair…yes  REALLY, you couldn’t make this up! The fair had opened and all was well, but slowly the rumour from the main hall trickled through to us in the smaller foyer area that something was afoot! We had also realised no visitors had appeared through the main door for quite a few minutes. 

It seemed that unwittingly, a stand holder in the main hall (who normally deals with jewellery & silver items) had purchased a WW2 shell from a recent house clearance. He thought it would be an “easy sell” at the Haddenham Fair. Someone (who knows about these things) spotted the shell and immediately realised it was live! Hence, the shell was promptly taken to the stand holders car out in the car park, and the police arrived. We were expecting to be evacuated, but no order came, so we just carried on! It was all a bit surreal to be honest. Although it had been advised to close all windows and doors on that side of the building nearest the “bomb”…as a precaution? Jokes were flying backwards and forwards amongst us all, and we were wondering if this was an actual wind up. But nope- this was really happening. 

The car park was subsequently cordoned off, and eventually the bomb squad arrived (some people reckoned from London- hence the delay). They safely removed the shell from the car, and took it away to a nearby field. An explosion could be heard a short time later. 

Although I am chuckling as I write this, there is that “what if” aspect to this story. What a mad world we live in! 

I Will Be At The Haddenham Antique & Collectors Fair This Sunday (24th May) 2026

Here is a glimpse of just some of the old treasures I will have for sale at the monthly Haddenham Antique & Collectors Fair this Sunday (24th May). 

This gorgeous 12" early 1900s china head doll is beautifully dressed and in fantastic condition, along with some tiny German baby dolls in original condition. 

I have never seen a pen knife this tiny before, it is exquisite! The antique Stanhope has an interesting little image of an old gentleman.  I have a number of the tiny Frozen Charlotte dolls. 

This is only a little peek of various other little bits and bobs I will have for sale. 

I will also have various "rummaging boxes" of assorted dolls house items, which are always popular. 

Hope to see you there!

Celia

Haddenham Village Hall, Banks Park, Banks Road, Haddenham, Bucks. HP17 8EE.
Entry time - 9.00am to 3.00pm.
Entry Fee - £2.00