The guru of grand (small) designs

Dreaming of a house with parquet floors, Victorian cornicing and high ceilings painted in Farrow & Ball Ammonite? Head to the London Miniature Company, the Etsy store run by Lone Schacksen. For her, doll’s houses are all about wish fulfilment. She creates Georgian town houses with grand fireplaces and wood panelling, but modern, Scandi fixtures and fittings – the perfect canvas for all your unrealised Grand Designs fantasies.

‘That’s what miniatures can do: you can explore the style that you love,’ says Schacksen, 47, who is Danish but has lived in London for the past 20 years. ‘It’s a way of having a hobby of interior design without having a big house or a lot of money. My house doesn’t look like this,’ says Schacksen, who lives in a new-build flat in south-east London.

Schacksen began making doll’s houses in the pandemic after her work as a theatre set designer dried up overnight. ‘I was thinking how I could use my skills,’ she says. ‘We use scaled models when we design sets, and people have always said I should be making doll’s houses.’

Covid forced her hand. She made one, put it on Etsy and soon requests came in. Clients as far away as California fell for her pared-back style. She works with a stack of paper and a scalpel, meticulously layering strips of paper until she has a tiny ceiling rose or marble mantelpiece. Clients can specify paint colours and any design features – a recent request was for an elaborate ceiling.

Lots of clients prefer to buy a single room rather than a whole house. ‘A matter of space,’ she says. ‘A whole doll’s house takes up a lot of room. With some of my rooms you can put it on a bookshelf.’ It’s also cheaper, with prices starting at around £599 for a room, compared to £1,500 for a whole doll’s house.