My 10 year old daughter is a huge fan of Tolkien's series...especially all things Hobbits. I want to surprise her for Christmas (she is asking for nothing because our other house has not sold in 18 months and she doesn't want to cause a hardship on us...her sweetness is making it worse to really make it special) and create a Hobbit Hole in my daughters bedroom. One of their walls is shared with our walk-in attic storage area...Here is my plan...cut out an opening big enough for them to "view" the Hobbit house... and have an opening Hobbit Door from their side of the room, so they can reach in and move furniture around or create little magazines for the Hobbits to read (okay we're talking really miniature hobbits)

I want to string a miniature light on the inside of the room so that when you open the "door" the light will automatically trigger...I have found some great gnome doors to copy my design from, I want to use colorful wood stains to make the door really something. They do have a strip of molding that meets the carpet...so I'm not decided if I want the door to be cut into the molding or just sit on top of it...technically I guess I could mount the 'house' part on a higher part of the wall so they could access it more easily and I could paint some trees/moss around it maybe even painting a tree so that it looks like the hobbit door is sitting in a hillside or on a tree...

I could use any help y'all can imaginate...what types of woods might be easiest for me to work with to create the door..any tips on how to rig the light so it will come on when the door opens...any ideas for miniature furniture I can put in the house...I was planning on using a wood box as the house and drilling a hole to hang the light down in...I want the whole house to be about 8" wide with double doors that open up not more than 10 inches tall...

Am I nuts? I much prefer homemade Christmas gifts and I know she would never forget it....any help?

Tara