The O'Connor family of
American Doll Room Company has come up with a fantastic doll room that is functional and portable. They currently have 5 styles of rooms that are available in light purple, pink, green, raspberry and aqua. Each room comes with your choice of color carpet, there is even a "hard wood option"
These rooms are 24 inches high by 24 inches wide and 24 inches deep. They fold down flat and come with a carrying case .
So what does a doll room cost? These well made, well priced doll rooms are $89. You get the room, curtains, flooring and the carrying case. The photo above shows the rooms from the inside and the outside. I love that the rooms are reversible so you can have outside play.
These rooms are made to work on their own or other rooms can be added for hours of doll play fun. When you are finished with your doll play you can fold up and store the room until next time, such a great feature!
So I wanted to know what these rooms were made of and was told they are made from "a very heavy paper board wrapped in vinyl laminate"
I love this room as Julie's 70's bedroom!
Rooms can be switched out to become a doll salon, restaurant and more. I love the hard wood floor look. Great for children who have dust allergies!
Outside dinning, look at the patio floor!
Order two rooms and create a great doll play living space!
I love the calm colors of this room.
I contacted the O'Connor family regarding their company and was thrilled to learn this family operation involves each family member. Rory O'Connor tells me "Our company - the board of directors is me - my 10 year old, 13 year old, 16 year old and 18 year old - lol - Each has their own job and responsibilies that they take care of - This all started as a craft project for my girls - we had just finished a project for my sons (building a 24' half-pipe in our backyard) - I thought it would be fun to build them a dollhouse - but once we determined the required room it would take up - it wasn't the way we wanted to go - so finally 18 months later I had figured out a way to make a modular, collapsible room "
I had to know more about Rory and his family and he shared with me some wonderful background on himself and his family. Here in his own words is his story
"So the history of this eh - well not that needs to be published - but will give you the whole story -lol - I am the youngest of nine children - father was a NY City Policeman - mother stay at home mom - My wife and I separated in May of 2009 - after 17 years - I was for the first time on my own in my life (had lived home with parents until we married at 21 and then moved into our home) We have 4 young ones - I had worked 2 jobs basically since we got married married to support the family - she was a stay at home - The night work I had done was buying and flipping houses - I had done 9 up to this point when I bought the most expensive "flipper" and the real estate market crashed - so needless to say lost most of what I had worked for in one fail swoop - I now lived on my own and had my kids 4 days a week - not having the night work to do - I realized that I had never really built anything for my kids - My boys had been asking for a half pipe to skate on so that was our first project - a month later we had a slab of Noah's Ark in our backyard - So next I wanted to do something for my girls - original I was going to make them furniture by going to the "dump" or "Transfer Station" - where you get rid of garbage - lol - and find old furniture - take pictures of it and reclaimed the wood - then be able to show before and after pictures - but going online I saw just how much furniture was out there - so instead we decided to try a doll house - then as the we realized how big they needed to be - we didn't have the room in our house for that size of a thing - and with the girls back and forth between houses each week - I knew they would want to bring it back and forth - so we decided to try to make it collapse - 18 months and nearly 20 different "prototypes" later - we arrived at what our rooms are today - BUT WE DID NOT HAVE ANY IMAGES - just the "structure"
With the economy as it has been - the company I have been with for years began to put the squeeze on us - basically, more for less - I have owned a few businesses - Ice Cream Parlor - Laundromat - Candy Store - lol - but I always worked a regular job - I have since childhood wanted to manufacture something - and after people began to hear and see what me and kids had made it became clear that maybe this could be more that just a craft project - and so 6 months ago we decided to take it public - we filed patents, trademarks, - created logos - and then had the daunting task of creating an image to be placed on the "houses"- so I taught myself graphic design - photography - you name it - and with the help of a lot of great people in those areas - were able to create what we have today -
We have a small warehouse - no office - no assistant - never done any type of social media marketing before - never filed a patent before - never registered a trade mark before - none of it - and it has been the coolest experience of our lives - I am tired of working with people 40 hours a week and spending more time with them then my family - so the hope is that this may eventually become a true thriving business for us - I have a 19 year old and 16 year old sons - and a 13 and 10 year old daughters - My sons run the ware house - my 13 year old will be in charge of social media etc and molly the 10 year old is the "FASHIONISTA" - when the final prototypes came back from the factory - she looked at them and said "Dad - they look great but ........" and from that was another 2 week delay in correcting all the things she did not like - lol
More wonderful news for this company, Rory tells me
"We entered our doll rooms in a "Toy Competition" that Creative Child Magazine sponsors each year. We did not have any expectations as to how we would do - as this whole process is so new to us.
We are very excited to be able to announce that we have won the "2011 Top Toy of the Year Award" in the Pretend Playthings Division. Our product will be featured in their November Holiday Edition."
As with all my posts I would love to hear from you so please leave me a comment here or email me at karenmowen@gmail.com
