No one is sure which came first: dollhouses, or dollhouse furniture. What is known is that the earliest examples of dollhouse furniture were created in Germany. Early, notable manufacturers of dollhouse furniture include Biedermeier (1850s-1860s), F.A.O. Schwarz, Rock & Graner, Christian Hacker, and Mystery Houses & Furniture, to name just a few. There are a few different ways you could go about picking the furniture with which to decorate your new home. If you are a serious collector and intend on simply displaying your dolls in the home, nice chairs would be a good start. However, if there will be some play involved, having a bed is a good idea. While chairs encourage interaction between dolls, they can be used primarily for display purposes. Beds are more conducive to play and are more difficult to fit suitably into rooms. Beyond chairs and beds, there are tables, armoires, vanities, and desks, among countless other items. Before purchasing any furniture for your house, you must make sure that it will fit the scale of the house and the dolls. Most manufacturers create furniture in two sizes: either one-inch or one-half-inch scale. To illustrate, with one-inch scale pieces, one inch translates into one full-scale foot--so a seven-foot couch would be seven inches long in dollhouse land. Depending on what size of furniture you are looking for, prices can vary dramatically. No-nonsense, new small-scale furniture can be quite reasonable--most pieces will be less than $10--while older, antique furniture can run into the thousands of dollars.
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