In a troubled world, grown-ups find joy in doll's houses

A log burns in the hearth in the artfully lit drawing room. The armchairs look plush and inviting. Glasses and a bottle of wine stand ready as a grandfather clock keeps time.

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LONDON - A log burns in the hearth in the artfully lit drawing room. The armchairs look plush and inviting. Glasses and a bottle of wine stand ready as a grandfather clock keeps time.

It is all straight out of a glossy magazine and yet every carefully crafted item in the room can fit into the palm of one hand.

"I love Victorian houses and always wanted to live in one," says doll's house enthusiast Michele Simmons, 57, admiring the cosy miniature scene by historical specialists Mulvany & Rogers.

The corporate recruiter revived her childhood passion for doll's houses during the Covid-19 pandemic and has since "flipped" about 10 - buying them, doing them up, then selling them.

She and her daughter thought nothing of flying all night from Boston in the United States to hunt for tiny curtains and a child's crib at the leading Kensington doll's house festival in London earlier in May.

"I love it. You don't think about anything else when you are doing this," she says.