How to Build your Dreamhouse by Rhys Timson

Read by Paul Clarke (second story in podcast, here)

Congratulations on your new HomeGirl^TM Dreamhouse Construction Kit! We at HomeGirl^TM believe it makes the perfect Christmas gift for your young daughter, or perhaps even son! This is the modern age, after all.

Hi! My name’s Jim Bowson, and in this how-to video I’m going to tell you everything you need to know about building your perfect doll’s house. Well, perhaps not perfect. I mean, nothing is perfect. You can get that idea out of your head right away! You are only setting yourself up for bitter disappointment if you expect perfection from anything or anyone. The key thing is to do your best – even if, for certain people, that will never be good enough.

The first thing to do is a quick inventory. This sounds boring, I know, but it’s important. You don’t want to end up having almost built the perfect doll’s house for your little darling only to find out you haven’t got everything you thought you had—like enough dowels, or nails or true love.

Follow my instructions and you’ll be fine. In relative terms, anyway.

1. Find a flat surface on which to work. Consider this your house’s foundation. The stability of any house depends on the stability of its foundations. Get the foundations wrong and everything will start collapsing from day one. Just like your parents’ marriage.

2. And on that note, find a quiet space to work away from the wife and the kids. Doll’s house construction is a fiddly task that requires your whole concentration. You don't want grasping little fingers ruining all your hard work, or your kids causing a fuss either.

3. Start with the basic frame. Slot the dowel joints into floor section A and then attach wall sections B to either side. With the walls up, no-one will be able to see what's going on inside your house. You won’t even know yourself. Not until it’s too late.

4. Fit the four-part gable roof (two each of panels C1 and C2) together using the thin dowel pieces and camlock screws. Be careful here as this is structurally crucial. Get things wrong at this point and your happy home stands little chance of staying together, like if a groom were to allegedly spend more time talking to a bridesmaid than his wife at the wedding. There's just no recovering from that. Or so some people would have you believe.

5. With the frame up, use the pins provided to hammer in the back panel. This is a good opportunity to let out some pent-up aggression. Enjoy it.

6. Now it's time to slot in the internal walls. It's important to have walls up, no matter what some people say. You can’t just take them down whenever someone asks you to. They’re there for a reason. Sometimes, you just need to keep people out.

7. If you wish to fit hinged doors (sold separately) it's best to attach them before you slot in the walls. HomeGirl^TM doors come in a variety of finishes. Finish is important, but remember nothing is ever really finished, even if she tells you it is.

8. Next, fit the upper and attic floor panels (D1 and D2) into the guides and screw them in with the screws provided. Screw everything in as hard as you can or you'll be screwed later and left with nothing. Little joke there.

9. Now it's time to pick your furniture! Or perhaps you could involve your family by asking your wife and daughter to choose the interior decoration themselves? And if your wife happens to take an old friend with her to help her choose? So what? Steve’s always had good taste. He has an eye for design. He has an eye for a lot of things.

10. If you purchased the optional realistic lighting pack, you may now attach the fittings to the ceilings where appropriate. The lighting will help you see what's going on, although obviously you'd need a camera hidden in an alarm clock or a team of private detectives to see everything all the time. It's not as if you can hide in that attic all day, peering through a gap in the trapdoor! You're not small enough to fit inside a doll’s house anyway, no matter what size you may actually feel. You're a grown man now, Jim. Act like it.

11. You can paint the exterior of the house any colour you wish. HomeGirl^TM offer a variety of colours ranging from Redbrick Dream to Stoney Wonder. Choose whatever colour you want. It won't matter in the end. The one I’m using here is called Concrete Heart.

12. The miniature bunting and ribbons are so you can throw a little housewarming party for your kids when you’ve finished building the house. Why not invite your neighbours round to show off your hard work? And if certain people disappear for long periods of time and then come back looking flustered? Let it go. You're paranoid, Jim. You always have been.

13. Finally, you may want to purchase some inhabitants for your house. HomeGirl^TM dollhouses are compatible with many other manufacturers’ figurines, but my advice is to pick a wife and a husband from the same range. It’ll look strange if you don’t. They just won’t go together, or at least, that’s what people will say. Give them names if you want. Call the guy Joe or Jack or John or Jim. It doesn’t really matter. Call the wife whatever you want. I can think of some names. Then how about some kids? Pick a little girl first and call her Alex. Call her that even if it isn't the name you wanted because, as you’ve always really known, she isn’t really yours.

14. Anyway. It’s all finished now. Place the people you bought in the house you made. See how they make it a home? But you're missing something. Pick another husband and call him Steve. That's better. See how he fits so much better than the first guy? Boy, was that guy a mistake, huh?

15. With the house finished and the lights on, it's going to look pretty cosy in there. Too bad all you can do is look in from the outside. Night after night. Parked up on the street outside. Until she hits you with the restraining order.

16. But, in any case, the house is now complete. Congratulations! Time to reward yourself by cracking open a beer or ten. Remember, the image on the box is for illustration purposes only. Following these instructions does not guarantee you will achieve the same results.

17. Now if you find, at this stage, that things don’t look like you expected and that you’re missing parts, then remember what I told you right at the top of this video. Nothing’s perfect. And the truth is, we’re all missing parts. The thing you need to realise is that it was never about the missing screws or the dodgy camlocks, the wrong size dowels or the machine-cut pieces not aligning. It was you. You were the component that didn't fit. Maybe you were just never meant to be in this box.

18. Remember, if you enjoyed this construction kit, maybe if you just survived it, HomeGirl^TM and BusyBoy^TM sell a range of other projects. Next Christmas, why not try the HomeGirl^TM Log Cabin or the BusyBoy^TM Fantasy Castle? The HomeGirl^TM Pet Hospital or the BusyBoy^TM Lighthouse? We sell a wide range of kits to suit all audiences and all ability levels. Somewhere out there, there’s one that’s perfect for you. I mean, that’s what my therapist tells me. And, who knows, maybe she’s right. Maybe next year is the year it will click into place. You build things and they fall apart. You start again. They fall apart and you start again, again. That's life. As long as you can hold a hammer and nails in your hands, there’s hope, right?

Anyway, thanks for watching, and don't forget to leave a comment, like and subscribe! I’m Jim Bowson. Merry Christmas!

(c) Rhys Timson, 2022

Rhys Timson has had short fiction published by 3:AM, Litro, Popshot, Structo and Lighthouse, and has had stories featured in several previous Liars' League events.

 

 

 

Paul Clarke trained at the Central School and always got cast as a baddie or a monster. Or, for a change, a bad monster. Now a photographer and occasional performer, he finds the League's stories islands of relative sanity in his life.