Antique German Hacker Dolls House Restoration - Part Four - The Doorbell!

The next stage of restoration on my old Christian Hacker dolls house, was to get the doorbell working again. 

It took a while to figure out how to do this, particularly as the old metal bell’s backplate was bent out of shape, therefore preventing the bell to ring at all. 

I managed to gently prise the whole thing off, straighten with pliers, then fix back into place. The old smudge of blue paint was scraped off the bell exterior (not sure what it was doing on there). 

And although the original hole for the exterior lever had at some point been filled in & painted over, it wasn’t too difficult to work out where to drill a replacement hole. The new external lever was made up of old jewellery bits, aged further with paint. 

Then through a prolonged process of trial & error, I decided on strong thread instead of wire in order to connect the bell to the lever. 

Finally, I am delighted to confirm that on pulling the lever firmly the bell does indeed “ding”, as you will see in this video ( you will need your volume turned up).🤣 

Now with the addition of antique lace curtains too, this lovely old dolls house is slowly coming back to life. Am now looking forward to filling the rooms with all my gorgeous bits & bobs I have been collecting for this beauty. I think I will tackle one room at a time...starting with the kitchen. 😊