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A Nelson collector creates the tiniest dream homes
A beautiful crystal chandelier sparkles in an elegant drawing room where embroidered cushions sit on an upholstered chaise. A delicately painted landscape hangs on the wall and a tapestry screen sits in front of a grand masonry fireplace.
Elsewhere in the house, antique lace spreads cover the beds, a baby sleeps in a canopied cot, a wooden chest has a hand-painted bucolic scene and a cabinet glows with exquisite marquetry, each piece of inlaid wood almost too small for the eye to see.
In the kitchen, fresh fish and vegetables, including carrots, sweet corn, lettuce and artichokes, await the evening meal and a table is covered with the accoutrements and ingredients for handmade chocolates. Peaches are in the process of being cut for fruit salad and a bowl of liquorice allsorts sits beside a cheesecake and a pottery tea set.
What we are witnessing is the creation of a dream environment, says Kim Lineham. In real life, we may never have an aristocratic drawing room full of antiques or an expansive Provençal country kitchen. But in miniature everything is possible.
“You can fulfil your fantasies,” she says. “You can have a bach or a Tudor house or a Japanese garden – anything you wish for.”
Kim is a maker, collector and purveyor of doll’s houses and everything that goes in them. There is every kind of furniture, including the kitchen sink, and curtains, floor rugs, vases, even computers and televisions. Alongside the tiny pots and pans, food, pictures and pillows, there are people and pets.
“You can fulfil your fantasies. You can have a bach or a Tudor house or a Japanese garden – anything you wish for”
Kim painstakingly makes these tiny works of art in the workshop of her Nelson home. She also buys “miniatures”, as these tiny doll’s house accessories are called, from artists worldwide. Kim specialises in making miniatures with the modelling clay Fimo and other clays but she also uses metal, wood, paint, fabric and thread. Her work sells all around the world through her website and the workshops she runs at exhibitions here and overseas.
Her international connections are helped by having a Swedish mother and an English father. She also lived for 16 years in Hawaii before coming to New Zealand with her Nelson-born husband Kerry Lineham. They have since added Amanda, three, and baby Alex to their collection of real-life miniatures.
Although her pastime has become a business, Kim says she will remain a collector who simply loves everything that is tiny.
“A lot of people buy one miniature and then end up with a hobby. My mother did that and now she has 15 doll’s houses in her one-bedroom apartment in Sweden.”
Of course most of these delicate, intricate items are designed primarily with adult enjoyment in mind, but that doesn’t mean that children should miss out. In Kim’s opinion, there is no greater childhood joy than playing with a doll’s house.
“Making furniture from matchboxes and bed covers from scraps of fabric is very creative – so much better than watching television.”
See kimsminis.com or phone (03) 543 2515 for information on Kim’s miniatures studio and a new doll’s house museum to be open by appointment.
Story: Pam Neville
Photographs: Daniel Allen
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