"Jenny's Home...A Dream Come True"

“Jenny’s Home…A Dream Come True!”

Miniature worlds have fascinated children for generations, and most of us will have had a farm, garage or doll house as youngsters….and some of us are still fascinated by them now even though we’ve grown up.  Many adults avidly seek out vintage items to add to their existing collections, or to own something today they didn’t have when they were small.  I had a 1/16^th scale Tri-ang ‘Jenny’s Home’ doll’s house, one of their very last models, and I’ve recently started collecting again too.

Tri-ang was formed in the 1920s by the 3 sons of Joseph Lines, of Lines Brother’s Ltd, which was at one time one of the largest toy makers in the world. Originally manufacturing in metal, they began incorporating plastics into their toy designs after buying out Rovex, an injection moulding company. The high level of detail achievable in the plastic with the strength of the metal underneath was a brilliant combination, and many of their designs, such as the Hornby train set, have stood the test of time in both longevity and popularity. Tri-ang also made doll’s houses for many years, probably being best known today for their ‘Tudor’ models which reflected the popular styles of early 20^th century suburban housing. The doll house furniture was also made in metal and plastic, meaning they could achieve lifelike detail, as well as strength, so fortunately many fine examples can still be found today by collectors.

Jenny’s Home was made for only five years between 1965 and about 1970 when Tri-ang ceased trading. Every box states it was ‘planned in association with Homes and Gardens magazine’ and was ‘A room of your own! A house of your own!’ reflecting the popularity of  apartments and flats, and the desire for everything modern, open, light and new. It was a modular system so you could extend your house by adding more rooms as you could afford them…but as it was quite expensive at the time, my original house had only 4 rooms. These came in 2 sizes, and had huge sliding windows in the ‘large’ rooms, ribbed ‘glass’ connecting doors, and tilting windows with turquoise panels beneath in the smaller rooms. Outside were textured ‘stone’ effects and ‘wood’ panelling, and a balcony or garden space if you wanted them. The ‘roof’ sections were flat transparent panels which could be lifted off for easy access to the interiors where the furniture could be arranged. The rooms could be linked at the doorways in lots of different ways, or stacked on top of each other. I enjoyed this unusual aspect of the toy’s design, assembling mine in as many ways as my limited collection allowed.

The furniture was made by Spot-On, a subsidiary of Lines/Tri-ang in Belfast. Some of the designs had been produced before for earlier Tri-ang houses, but they were updated with distinctive new colours, of mainly white, turquoise blue, and red, and repackaged specifically for Jenny’s Home. Some of the ‘Starter’ multi-room packs came with some furniture, and it could also be bought in complete room sets, like the bathroom set, bedroom, dining room, gardening, nursery set etc and there were also some individual pieces and accessories available on their own. These were obviously never bought in large quantities as they are very desirable today and command a high price, especially if they can be found in their original packaging. I didn’t have a lot of the original furniture in 1968, as it was quite expensive at the time. I have been seeking out a few extras recently on auction sites, some of them can be picked up quite cheaply if they have no box or need a little repair here and there. One thing I would have loved to have had was the electrical system to provide lighting which really brings the house to life. It was battery powered, with the pack to run the system concealed inside a large ‘chimney’ clad in textured stone, which stood at the side of the rooms.

Typical of Tri-ang’s attention to detail, was the fact that a lot of the things in the house were based on real-life items available at the time. The bathroom was by ‘Swanlyne’, the TV was a ‘Bush’, the fridge ‘Prestcold’, and the Radiogram was by ‘Phillips’. The rooms had ‘wall-to-wall’ carpets, and Jenny had all the ‘modern luxuries’ such as a swing seat and sun lounger for her garden….yet despite such claims to modernity the writing on the box suggests what seem rather mundane activities for Jenny!

Girls! Here’s Jenny’s Home! A beautiful home for you to love and care for!

Build it up room by room just exactly the way you want it!

Fill it with all kinds of wonderful Jenny’s Home furniture, curtains and carpets!

And there’s Jenny! Ready to cook and clean, sit and sew….

…there’s never been such fun for girls before! See what you and your Jenny can do!

My Jenny was an interior designer, a gardener, and had friends round to play!

I loved my Jenny’s Home at the time, and I still think it is a wonderful little toy.

If you search for Jenny’s Home, for Tri-ang/Spot-On/Jenny’s Home online you can find a few people who have built up quite extensive collections which give an idea of how the original pieces looked in the room settings. There are a few places also where you can still buy pieces, and sometimes they come up in auctions. I have recently managed to get 2 more large rooms and a small room, a set of lounge furniture, some kitchen items, and some of the lighting, but I still have a long way to go to come close to some of the wonderful collections online.

Wiebe Buising in the Netherlands has a wonderful website of all the toys produced by Spot-On and their doll’s house pieces like Jenny’s Home, and is in the process of putting photographs of everything he can find on line. He was kind enough to allow me to use some of his photographs and information in this article. His site is well worth a visit for any enthusiast!  Have a look at his ‘doll house furniture ( scale 1/16^th)’, and ‘room-sets’ for Jenny’s Home:
http://spot-on-collector.com

           

I am also putting my pictures of finds, research, and virtual ‘wish-list’ on Pinterest here:

https://www.pinterest.com/eileensedgwick/jennys-home-by-triangspot-on/

…and I have started a Facebook page for her here:

https://www.facebook.com/TriangJennysHome/

Eileen Sedgwick

www.eileensedgwick.com

www.eileensedgwick.blogspot.co.uk/