This pine dollhouse was made in Melbourne by Hansa. The founder of that business was Hans Juergen Axthelm. An easy guess is that HANS Axthelm became Hansa.
Cute and simplistic.
Mr Axthelm passed away in 2020 and started his business in the early 1970's producing wooden toys, crafts, games and other items. One toy in particular was the well known Hansa Walker Wagon.
Prior to forming his own business he worked for Atlas Plastics in Melbourne, they produced the popular Joanne Walking Doll.
Furniture I painted, distressed and made cushions for.
These days, the Hansa company is still in production but operates from overseas producing a range of high quality realistic and educational soft toy animals as well as mechanical ones.
Add your own floor coverings.
Floor covering can be cheap to buy if you know where to look and keep an eye out for clearances. I either buy mine when it's on sale or make use of the many miniature free download sites where owners have generously done most of the work for us.
Items like flooring and wallpaper through the ages as well as boxes to make for food and games that are already pre printed and pre sized are ready to download for free, cut the item, fold and glue. There's a great range of items available and all it takes is a Google search.
There are so many resources available these days for free or many sellers on sites like Etsy have downloads for a very minimal cost.
I'm a bit of a Temu fan girl for some items including craft stuff which I've been buying since Temu started and dollhouse accessories are very good value (I'll be doing a post on that later).
And there's the HANSA name.
The picture card backing to the back wall is original and bears the Hansa name. While the house is pine, the back wall isn't.
The carpet and tiles I've used throughout the house were purchased from a dollhouse store on sale for $1.00 a sheet--cheap as chips so I went a bit crazy.
Breakfast in the Hansa Rose Cottage.
This basic and unremarkable dollhouse with four rooms came unstained, unvarnished and unpainted. Being Australian made, it appeals to me. As you can see, I painted mine dusty pink as I like the colour, it looks vintage-ish, it softened the appearance of the house and pink is a colour that's edged on the dollhouse box along with a pink rose also seen on the front of the box.
Some Australian made Dubco Toys Furniture.
The dollhouse doesn't have a name attached to it other than the Hansa brand name on the box. As previously stated the dollhouse box is edged in pink and also lilac. The photo of the house is staged with furniture that didn't come with it. A young girl is also seen on the front of the box and that pink rose I previously mentioned is seen to the right of the box.
Hansa is also the name of a pink to lilac rose. A coincidence? Either way, I've named my Hansa dollhouse Rose Cottage--a popular dollhouse name that isn't my only Rose Cottage.
Dubco Toys Queensland.
I've furnished Rose Cottage in some 'Dubco Toys' vintage furniture and some other pieces of unnamed furniture from my dollhouse stockpile.
Dubco Toys were a small place near the Gold Coast in Queensland who at one time made dollhouses and furniture for them. They may well have made other toys but the dollhouse side of their business is all I know.
I'm no minimalist when it comes to decorating dollhouses.
This Hansa dollhouse isn't rare, they often pop up for sale on eBay, FB Marketplace and Gumtree. I paid less than $50 for mine but of course, the postage was a lot more than the cost of the dollhouse which was expected and that's another reason why I won't pay high prices for most dollhouses.
Some of these Hansa houses are sold without the picture card backing on the back wall and more often than not, the seller has no idea that it's an Australian made dollhouse or who the manufacturer is, as without the back wall picture card, if you don't know, you don't know.
Below is a selection of the products Hansa manufactured
Games
Third Man, Brain Trainer, Rummiking, Domino Express, Honey Bee Tree, Turbo Tops, Professor Nod and his Turtle Race.
Toys
50 Big Wooden Blocks, Chalk Board, Blackboard/Whiteboard, HO Box Car, Mini Supermarket, Supermarket Mini Packs, Monster Machine, Walker Wagon, Hobby Horse, Dollhouses, Teddy Bear Wooden Toy Box on Wheels, Trike (in pink or blue), 4 in 1 Painting Easel, Service Station, Sandbox and Rollyprint.
Ministeck range
Smurfs, Disney, Funny Bunny, Miss Petticoat, Stallion, Bird Life, Vintage Series, Tibby & Bengy and Galleon.
Craft
Stitch-n-Make-n-Decorate, Pottery Moulding Kit, Styrocraft, Shell Craft, Little Florist Flower Press, French Knitting, Glass Etching and Screen Printing.
