Before I could consider any decor for the dollhouse I’d salvaged from my parents’ basement, I knew I needed a family for the house. How could I possibly determine the style of the interior without a family as my reference point? Thus began a years’ long quest for the perfect miniature family.

The options were not as plentiful as I had anticipated, especially since I had to consider the scale of my dollhouse (which is 1:12, or one inch = one foot). Though that is the standard dollhouse size, many dollhouse people are made to inhabit larger or smaller homes. Frequent online searches, as well as trips to Hobby Lobby and Michael’s, left me feeling disappointed.

I did not want the resin figures, created by a company called Mayberry Street. The adolescent daughter, wearing a trendy cross-body bag forever, had her hand permanently affixed to her hip. The father’s right hand was sealed in his pants pocket, and the toddler was stuck in the mother’s arms for eternity. I needed dolls with articulated limbs so they could move about their lovely home. The resin people simply would not do.

Another option, called Modern Dollhouse Family Blonde, was anything but modern. The mother and daughter sported clouds of platinum-colored hair that I knew would snarl and frizz the minute it was touched by human hands. The father and son were wearing ill-fitting Kelly green sweaters with pointy lime-green collars. This was not the family I wanted for my dollhouse.

Interestingly, Dillard’s offered a dollhouse family which I considered for about a minute and a half. Made entirely of wood and dressed in tiny homespun cotton clothing, their heads were all perfectly round wooden balls…like finials on the ends of curtain rods. Their facial expressions and hair were painted on with glossy acrylics. Ummm…no.

The search continued.

Imagine my surprise, while browsing through a peddler’s mall in a neighboring county, when I found a lumpy ball of Saran Wrap with a hand-written label, “Dollhouse Family, $5.”

“Oh my gosh,” I said, grabbing the ball of plastic wrap.

What a strange packaging choice, I thought. There was so much wadded clear wrap and layers of packing tape that I couldn’t make out any of the figures inside. Smaller than a basketball, but larger than a softball, the contents of the plastic-wrap ball were a mystery. It was unclear how, or why, the dollhouse family had been bound up in such a tangled mess.

Even though I was not going to be able to look at the family, I was willing to take the risk.

After making my purchase, we drove home. My new family, encased in their cling film, sat on my lap. I couldn’t wait to get home and begin the unveiling.

With my best wrapping-paper scissors, I set to work.

The first doll I freed from the tangle of clear wrap was Pink Baby. Pink Baby looked as if he’d been out in the sun without sunscreen or sunhat. Wearing a sort of baby tuxedo, he smiled up at me with the black dots of his eyes and his startling red lips. A white kitten in a green litter box was the next to emerge, followed by Pink Baby’s fraternal twin. Cross-eyed, with dirt caked into the creases of his face, he looked as if he had been buried at some point.

Mother was next. Minimally articulated, her waist joints had loosened so that standing her on the table was nearly impossible. After multiple attempts, I finally found the perfect balance so she was only pitched forward a little…for the photo at least. She crumpled to the tabletop seconds later.

Father was next to be loosed from the tape. Half his nose had been scraped off, along with a bit of his forehead; but he could stand unassisted, his hands pointed stoically by his sides, straight as arrows.

The ball of plastic wrap was now in shreds, and the last two family members were revealed. Big Sister was wearing a splendid yellow dress. Unfortunately, she also had a yellow head where part of her light brown hair had been rubbed away. I could pretend this was a hairband, I reasoned. Big Brother, though, required more imagination than even I possessed to make him less frightening. Dressed in clothes the same color as his face, he looked as if he were being sent off to military school.

Confused as to why I hadn’t rushed to the living room to show him my treasures, my husband came into the kitchen to check on me. There I sat, a mound of cellophane in my lap, my dolls staring at me.

“Whoa,” he said. “those are scary.”

I couldn’t argue; but what could I do?

(To be continued…)