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Welcome to the doll house: Young resident sees dream become reality
Photo courtesy Gene Smith: Frisco resident Roma Majji’s dream becomes a reality when her nearly 500-pound doll house arrives at her home.
By Elizabeth Knighten, eknighten@acnpapers.com
Turning 9-years-old was only the beginning for Frisco resident Roma Majji, but seeing her vision of a doll house for her American Girl dolls become a reality, was dream come true.
The Polly Tadlock Elementary School student told her mother, Shipra Majji that she wanted a house for her American Girl doll collection.
“She came to me and she said ‘Mommy, I think it’s time that I get a doll house,’ ” Shipra said. “She [Roma] said that we need to get these dolls in their in the rooms.”
“I started looking and I found Mr. [Gene] Smith,” Shipra said. “She [Roma] told him exactly what she wanted, how she wanted, how many rooms, she made him take measurements of the dolls, the beds, anything and everything that she wanted in that house — it was part of her project.”
Plano based Gene Smith, owner of Noble Son Woodworks, LLC , who Shipra hired to build the custom-made doll house, was the “right person” she said, and was also “very dedicated to Roma’s vision.”
“He was very calm and collected when he came to our house and he took everything, all the little details into perspective and he completed the project for us,” Shipra said.
Smith worked with Shipra and Roma and they discussed all of the elements Roma wanted in the house.
“We met three times with Mr. Smith and she picked the colors, the flooring, the carpeting, we went over everything, the windows, how she wanted the roof — she just had a vision for it,” Shipra said.
The doll house, which took three months to construct was filled with Roma’s ideas from top to bottom including light switches for each room, a door bell, attic, wood floors on the first floor and individually designed rooms for the upstairs bedrooms.
During the process, Smith sent Roma and her mother drawings online to make sure the design was up to her standards.
“We spent a lot of time on this project, it’s commendable how he put her vision into reality,” Shipra said.
Smith, whose work typically consists of creating tables, bookcases and chests, said this is the first time he had ever built a doll house. He added that in working with Roma, her attention to detail was “refreshing.”
“I was quite surprised — as we discussed things like the placement of the windows, the colors, the rooms and things like that,” Smith said. “ If I said, ‘well this maybe a little difficult if we do this,’ — she was able to stay right with me and I was quite surprised.”
The doll house, which Roma received on Jan. 13, was given to her as a birthday gift because she turned 9 on Jan. 10.
The house, which Smith estimates weighs at least 500 pounds and stands “just under 5 feet tall,” had to be carried in the Majji home by four men because of the weight.
“She [Roma] was so thrilled, but she was just sacred because when we were trying to take it upstairs it was a little heavy. My husband needed to call four construction workers around our house — because they are still building some houses — to carry this upstairs and I had to distract her,” Shipra said. “They didn’t want the doll house falling right in front of her and getting damaged or messed up or anything, so I had to take her out for a little bit.”
Roma’s teacher, Alexis Nelson, stopped by and took photos of the house to show parents during the regular Friday school presentations for parents.
Shipra said she thought this was a great project for her daughter to learn from.
“I wanted her to do this, it was a learning experiment for her to see that things can be built and we can bring an idea to life,” Shipra said. “I just want to encourage her because she had a very good vision and, to participate in her vision, it created an opportunity for her to think ahead … and I just wanted this to be a good experiment for her and she can take a lot from it, and she did.”
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