McGhee's Miniatures

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McGhee's Miniatures was formally incorporated in 2009.

The story of McGhee's Miniatures begins a long time ago. In 1982, there was the best Christmas present from Santa Clause ever! The tag on it, of course said "The Girls." You see, I have an "Irish Twin," Jen. We are 14 months apart in age, and throughout our childhood, were the BEST friends. So it was not uncommon for Santa to bring gifts that were for both of us.

At the time, I did not know how unique our dollhouse was. Since mine was the only dollhouse I ever really saw, I assumed that all dollhouses looked like mine. It was not until I was an adult, and I again became interested in dollhouses that I learned just how unique our house was. Our dollhouse was hand built by a man named Howard J. Miller. To this day, I have no idea who this man is. I found that he had signed and dated the dollhouse way down in the rafters of the house. I believe the dollhouse was purchased at either St. Joseph's Academy or Chaminade’s school auction in St. Louis Missouri.

The house that this man designed was perfect for 2 little girls. There is no “front” to the house. Rather, the house had rooms on both sides of the house. Just think about it, my sister and I could both play with the house at the same time, one on each side, and never have to fight to get to the rooms. Our Mom kept the dollhouse on a Lazy Susan. We called one side of the house “the stair side,” and the other “the attic side.” When we got tired of playing with the side we had, we would spin the house and have a whole new set of rooms to play with!

Another great feature of this design is that this dollhouse feels more like a real house! Most dollhouses, if you look at them, are 1 room deep! I have never seen a real house that is only one room deep! This is a concept that many dollhouse manufactures have struggled with since dollhouses were first made. While I absolutely loved our dollhouse, I had no idea back then just how incredible a house it was.

When Jen and I got tired of our dollhouse, and no longer spent hours a day playing inside it, I remember carefully wrapping up all the furniture and accessories in tissue paper and putting it all carefully into boxes that went up into our attic.

Life moved on and I became a software engineer, working with Artificial Intelligence. My parents by this time had bought a home in Fort Myers Florida where they spend at least 6 months of the year. I had to go over to their house at least 3 times a week, to collect the mail, check the house, and make sure all was well. So one day I decided to do a ‘complete’ walk through, including the attic. Up in the attic I found a dollhouse kit. I had never seen it before. I pulled it out to inspect it further, and that’s when I saw the ‘Venture’ store price tag! Venture had not been in St. Louis for nearly 30 years, so I know this dollhouse kit had been here awhile. I called my Mom, and asked why she had this Dollhouse in the attic. Well she had no idea what I was talking about. She told me to just take if I wanted it. And so it began…..

I took the Dura-craft Victorian Farmhouse Special Edition Dollhouse Kit back to my condo and broke the seal on the box! It was at that moment that I knew why my parents had never put this kit together. There were no walls! There were 3 foot long pieces of different kinds of wood strips! This was going to be a lot more work then I had thought!

I carefully labeled all the parts and pieces, and then when I finished my day at with the Artificial Intelligence, I would come home and work on this beautiful house. I had painted and assembled the house, put flooring and wallpaper in each room, and was really at the point where I would get to start filling the inside with wonderful furnishings and details to make the house my home. Then it happened, I LOST MY JOB! I won’t go into details here, but apparently, I did not fit in at “The good old boys club” that was alive and well where I had worked.

Despite the fact that the entire time I worked 50% of my pay check went into a savings account, I did not feel like I should be spending money on a hobby, while I did not have a job. But that dollhouse sat there calling to me. I would spend at least 8 hours a day, searching job boards, filling out applications, and researching companies that used the type of technology I was by then so well trained in. I knew that the Artificial Intelligence was a specialized field, but I had no idea just how scarcely it really was used. To my dismay, I found the biggest user of this technology was the government and intelligence agencies. I would have been more than happy to offer my services in such a role, but at that time, shortly after 9/11, every job that used AI required an “already existing security clearance.” Well, obviously I did not have an existing security clearance, so time and again, despite the fact that I had the very skills that a company or agency was looking for, I was turned away.

All the while, that dollhouse kept calling to me. But I could not allow myself to spend money filling that house. I did however breakdown and bought a paperback book on how to make your own dollhouse accessories! My mind was filled with beautiful ideas of things I could make for my dollhouse! Both my mother and I used to do a bit of sewing, so I had lots of scraps of fabrics, spools of thread, ribbon, and other odds and ends already around. I started making a few of the items in the book. Right from the start two of my favorites were the stocking, and parasols! They were so amazing and magical. So I made more! I made ever color combination I could think of! I had found something I really loved to do!

Now, one thing about software engineers, which is somewhat of a requirement, are the traits of being a perfectionist, and perhaps a bit OCD. That perfectionism is the only way that software will work. An upper verses lower case letter and your entire program will not run!  Still having those though processes grilled in my brain, I decided to make billiard balls and sticks for my dollhouse! And this was defiantly one project that required perfectionism! Despite the tiny size of the balls, (about the size of a BB), I wanted each ball to be the correct color, including the stripe balls. Each ball had to have the white dot and the balls number in the center of the circle! And so that is how I made them! It took me quite some time to work out how to make all the balls the same size. How to get the stripe for the 9 through 15 balls, and how to get the numbers placed on each ball! I was so proud of the balls I had made! Then I decided that I should make cue sticks to go with them! I made the sticks partly using ideas from the book, and part from my own creation, and found the perfect way to easily make the sticks. They all were painted up to an exact point mid shaft, the top made white, and of course, the tips are covered in blue chalk! I loved the beautiful sets of balls and sticks that I had made! But by this point, I had made about 200 sets! What in the name of heaven was I going to do with 200 set of dollhouse sized billiard balls and sticks? Not to mention the 150 or so sets of stockings, and parasols!

I made many other items, of course making them in bulk for no good reason at the time. So I decided in 2005 to have a booth at the annual Greentree Festival at Kirkwood Park. Greentree was our towns little craft and food festival that is held every year in the fall. I could not believe that I was going to have a booth at this thing. I mean a lot of artists came from all over, other states to have a booth at this festival! How on earth could I measure up to such a group? I had never sold anything, or set a display like this! Well things turned out better than I could have hoped! I thought I had a pretty professional looking booth. I actually did have some sales as well! So it was a pretty exciting weekend for me!

The following year, I waited too long to put my application for Greentree, and was not able to get a booth. Then it occurred to me, I live catty-corner to Kirkwood Park where the event is held. At least half of the people going to Greentree would have to walk right past my house to get to it! So I set up a booth on my driveway! I actually sold more that year then the year before! But something happened that day on my driveway that would change my outlook on my hobby forever! A mother and daughter came running up to my driveway like they had just found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! The mother explained to me that her and her daughter had seen me last year in the park. The daughter wanted to go to Greentree this year for the sole reason of looking for me. She was devastated when they did not find me at the park that year. As they were driving home, the daughter spotted me on my driveway. She shrieked “Mom, turn back, I think I see her!” It turned out that this very special little girl was very sick. She had looked forwarded to seeing me at Greentree for months, and had made a big effort to go to the park and look around for me. Her health did not allow her to spend much time walking around, but she wanted so badly to visit me again. So the mother thanked me from the bottom of her heart that I had set up, and her daughter had seen me. I told her next year I would make sure I got my application in on time next year. The mother wished me luck, but said that this would be the last year her daughter would be here to visit me. I had no words to express the overwhelming emotion I felt as I watched this frail and sick little girl admiring and smiling down at the tiny handmade treasures I had made. Her mom bought her a few things, but I insisted that she get several other treasures ‘just because she was such a loving and wonderful girl.’

I don’t really remember much else from that day. But that little girl stayed with me. I never thought that I, an unemployed software engineer, could bring so much joy to a child who needed it more than most other people on earth. How the tiny items I had made in an attempt to fill my time, and fill my dollhouse, could mean so much to such a wonderful child. I guess I realized at that time in 2006, that this ‘hobby’ I had started to fulfill myself, could be a means to bring joy to others life. I had this wonderful gift, but at the time, I really did not know how I would bring it to others.

I continued to search for companies or fields that used my niche technical skills. But I continued to face the same problem with security clearances. I also continued to read more tutorials, make new items, as create many items of my own creation. I learned how to use the computer skills that had given me my first career, and use them in my pursuit of dollhouse making.

In May 2009, I was watching the news on TV, as I ran around the house cleaning. A story came on about “ArtSpace at Crestwood Mall.” They were celebrating their 1 year anniversary. I had never head of ArtSpace, and was intrigued. Apparently, the failing Crestwood Mall that I had spent many weekend night visiting as a young girl, was offering storefronts to local artists! Something inside screamed “check this out!” The story explained that Crestwood was under new management, and many of the chain store mall tenets had moved out. Crestwood wanted to do something to keep the mall alive while it worked on a redevelopment plan. So incredibly, the mall had invited local artist to rent out store fronts for $100 per month.

I ran to my room and dressed the fastest I ever had and jumped in my car. I drove straight to Crestwood Court. Once inside I looked around at what was going on. I was in awe!! Something deep inside me told me that I belonged here! I searched for someone in charge. I found someone who was with the mall management. I asked him if there was still space availed. He told me that they had a few store still open, but they had over 200 applications for those spaces. I was panic stricken. I needed to get in here, something told me I did. I guess the guy saw my look and told me I should go online and fill out an application, “You never know,” he said.

So I left Crestwood Court with a heavy heart. I felt I did not stand a chance, but I did go ahead and I filled out the application online. I figured that would be the end of that.

Three months later, I got a call from Crestwood Court Management. They informed me that they were in the process of making some changes to ArtSpace, and they felt I was the perfect applicant for what they were looking for. They asked me to come talk to them. I made an appointment, and held my breath. During our meeting they told me that the past year they had rented out to artists who could use the space as a private studio. They were not required to even be open to the public. They still wanted unique artist type tenets, but really wanted them to have a retail aspect to their plan. This was exactly what I had put into my application. So I signed a contract with them and was given the key to my first store! As I proudly walked through the mall to my new store, I suddenly had a panicky feeling down in the base of my gut. “When they find out that I’m not really an artist, and I have never worked retail, they are going to kill me!”

I had no idea how to run a business. I did not even have retail experience! So it became a matter of learning every aspect of retail, management, how to create accounts with distributers, and manufactures, among many other basics of business as fast as I could. Thank God for the internet! While I did not have the benefit of having formal education in business or marketing or retail, I have found that this has actually been a benefit. I have not had the standard ‘rules’ of business pounded into my head. So I created my business and store based on how I, as a customer would like to see things run. Everyone that comes to my store hears me say, “The rules of the store are whatever Barbara wants!” Fortunately, most people like what Barbara wants!

So I had set up my first store, displaying all the wonderful handmade items I had created the past several years. I also got in contact with a wholesale distributor for dollhouses and all they involved, and made a small first purchase. I was all set! I had customers come in and where very interested in what I had to offer. But very early on, I had a customer that would literally change the entire focus and scope of my business. A mother came in and really wanted to get a dollhouse for her daughter that would not take up too much space in their apartment. After looking through catalogs from different Dollhouse companies, we found a house that we felt was perfect. This house actually had a smooth flat back, and was made to hang on a wall! Feeling like we had struck gold, I quickly place an order with the company.

When the kit arrived, I called the mother to let her know it was in. She rushed right over to my store excited to get started. But when I handed her the kit, her mood suddenly changed. We opened the box and she looked through the instructions. With tears gathering in her eyes, she told me “I can’t build this.” I told her “Of course you can!” “No” she said, “this is way beyond anything that I am capable of.” “Don’t be silly, you can do this!’ “No”, she stated again, “I have no idea of how or where to begin.” “Fine” I said, and dropped her kit on the floor of the store, “Then build it right here!” We both stood in silence for moment just staring into each other’s eyes. “Are you serious” she asked. At that moment I knew, “Yes, yes I am serious. This is my new business plan. People will be able to come here and build a dollhouse with me right by their side every step of the way!” The mother through her arms around me, and with tears of joy thanked me over and over. It was in this instant that my business converted from just an everyday retail store, to now both a store and work in studio, and I’ll tell you, it was the best decision I have ever made!

More to come....