FOR my seventh birthday, my parents gave me a plain, unfinished wooden dollhouse. It had six empty rooms, two floors, a staircase and a door that swung out onto a little front stoop. The windows opened, and the roof retracted on one side, revealing an attic.

It was 1988. My bedroom overflowed with Barbie dolls, My Little Ponies and She-Ra: Princess of Power figurines. But I instantly loved the dollhouse more than all of my pink plastic toys combined.

One summer afternoon, my dad and I painted it together in the backyard: pale pink with white trim. We hung wallpaper in each room, and soon the empty spaces began to take shape. The house had a kitchen, a foyer, a living room, a bathroom/laundry room and three bedrooms (the master, the baby’s room in the attic and the room of the older brother and sister who resented the baby for making them share).