An Army soldier spent £9k and up to 30 hours a week creating a stunning collection of intricate lifelike doll houses.<br /><br />Jen Lavery, 37, was looking for a relaxing hobby during lockdown in 2020.<br /><br />After spotting a post of a life-like dollhouse on a Facebook group, she decided to give it decorating one a go herself.<br /><br />The mum-of-one purchased a completely bare wooden house structure online and set to work designing a lifelike interior.<br /><br />Spending weeks on each room, she went to extreme levels of detail to create each vintage French themed part of a house - inspired by buildings such as the Palace of Versailles.<br /><br />The hobby has cost her around £9k - with each completed dolls house ending up worth several thousand pounds.<br /><br />Jen said she spends her whole weekends in her garage working on her dollhouses - up to 30 hours a week on top of her job.<br /><br />Jen, who works full-time in the Royal Military Police (RMP), said people are shocked when they learn how she spends her free time.<br /><br />But she has no plans to stop because she finds it an "escape" from her intense work - even though she is now running out of space in her house to put her six dollhouses.<br /><br />Jen, from Telford, Shropshire, said: "When I show people my work, they can't believe it.<br /><br />"I'm not designing a Barbie doll house, mine are museum-quality houses when I finish them."<br /><br />Jen first stumbled across the world of miniatures on Facebook - where there is an online community of likeminded people.<br /><br />It piqued her interest, and she ordered her first dollhouse to try as a lockdown hobby.<br /><br />She orders them plain before completely designing, painting and filling the interiors and exteriors with tiny furniture and artworks inspired by Baroque-style French interior design.<br /><br />Each dollhouse is a size ratio of 1:12 - the traditional size for scale models - and can take over a year to design and complete.<br /><br />But Jen - who is mum to Darcey, nine - loves it so much that she spends every weekend, evening and day off doing it.<br /><br />She orders her tiny furniture online or makes it herself if she can't find what she likes - and upholsters it herself.<br /><br />She designs every room and once she has completed the interior, will wire up the dollhouse with electricity with working lighting.<br /><br />Jen estimates she has spent about £9k on the hobby - buying the houses, paints and furniture to complete them.
