The Dollhouse on Display, and the Ones Still in a Box

At the Museum of the City of New York, I lingered in front of the Stettheimer Dollhouse longer than I meant to. Room after room, no bigger than a shoebox, was intricately arranged: tiny chandeliers, painted walls, furniture with brass handles. The whole thing felt delicate and theatrical. A world no one lived in, yet full of life.

I’ve always loved miniatures. Especially the DIY building kits, the kind that let you construct a bakery, a garden shed, a cozy attic workspace. They come with hundreds of tiny pieces, bags of cut wood, pre-folded books, and a flickering battery-powered lamp for that “lived-in” glow. I’ve been gifted a few over the years. They still sit unopened on a shelf.

I tell myself it’s because I don’t have space. Not just shelf space. I don’t have a proper table to build on, or a dust-free display cabinet, or the kind of peaceful Sunday afternoons I imagine are necessary for tweezering miniature furniture into place.

Maybe “no space” is just shorthand for something else. A kind of emotional clutter. An uncertainty about what happens when we finally begin the things we say we love. What if I start and lose interest? What if it doesn’t look like the picture? Or worse, what if it does, and it leaves me feeling nothing at all?

These kits are small, but they carry the weight of something larger: the idea of a future self who has it all together. Someone who has the time and the mental clarity to make beautiful things for no reason other than wanting to. The person I’ll be when things settle down. When I move. When I grow up. When I have space. Sometimes I wonder how many things I’ve deferred in the name of not being ready. Not just dollhouse kits, but letters, ideas, hard conversations, small pleasures. How many moments I’ve waited to feel worthy of, or “stable” enough to claim.

It’s easy to believe in readiness as a threshold. A moment when life finally clicks into place and the conditions are right. But readiness, I’ve learned, is often a myth, or at least a moving target. We think it lives in the future, but it’s more like a muscle you build in the present.

The kits still sit on the shelf, still wrapped. I know what the research says: procrastination is rarely just about time or space. It’s emotional, a quiet negotiation between fear and hope. I recognize the patterns: the myth of readiness, the waiting for a future self who has everything sorted. And still, the kits remain untouched. Still, I haven’t begun. Awareness doesn’t always tip into action. I hope one day I’ll make room, even if there’s no perfect room for it yet.