When Debbie Swanson’s mother-in-law Benita died in 2011, she left the family a little something.

Lots of little somethings, actually.

Benita, according to Swanson, had a “passion” for miniatures and collected the items everywhere she went. She also built elaborate display boxes for her creations, which Debbie decided were too good to keep to themselves.

“She was like an artist and no one ever saw her work” Swanson said. “When she passed, I had to make it alive for other people.”

And so Benita’s collection lives on at Swanson’s downtown store, A-1, along with the vacuum cleaners and locks and safes the store also sells.

Several of the complete boxes are on display, filled with tiny but elaborate miniature pieces, some bought and some handmade by Benita herself.

Among the boxes on display are a wedding display, complete with porcelain dolls, a fisherman display, a bakery and even an elaborate upstairs/downstairs model, showing an affluent upper floor with an extensively detailed servants’ quarters below.

One of the favorites is a display modeled after a European deli, complete with tiny meats hanging in the back and tiny display case filled with tinier filets and cuts.

There’s a miniature doctor’s office, complete with a tiny wheelchair and even tinier boxes of Tylenol, Bayer Aspirin and Alka-Seltzer boxes.

Some of the details are amazing. One box includes a tiny mirror with an even tinier photo of Jackie Robinson taped to the bottom corner. At the bakery, each cake and pastry is elaborately iced and there’s even tiny grains of salt in a fully stocked, but miniature old-style peddler’s wagon.

The checker boards have checkers and the card tables have tiny playing cards. On a tiny television on the second floor of a small dollhouse, a television is showing an episode of “Get Smart.”

Swanson said Benita would collect miniatures everywhere she went, seeking out new and interesting designs for whatever new display she had dreamed up.

“As her daughter-in-law, I would shop with her,” Swanson said.

There are boxes commemorating vacations, like a trip to Disney or Hawaii, and boxes for just about every holiday, including an extensive yuletide display.

“Christmas, that was her favorite,” Swanson said.

Swanson said she is selling many of the boxes as single pieces, ranging from $350 for the deli up to more than $750 for a small saloon scene that contains five porcelain dolls.

There are also individual miniatures available for purchase at the store, so people can make their own box displays and carry on where Benita left off.

But not every display is for sale, such as the one the family “accidentally” discovered in a room that was so full of miniatures they did not originally see it.

Behind several other displays and boxes of pieces, the Swansons found a “hidden surprise,” a large two-story display that features an Old West saloon on the first floor with an upstairs brothel.

In the saloon, miniature dollar bills pile up in a poker game as miniature dancing girls visit tables stacked with a miniature bottle of Jim Beam. Upstairs, one of the girls is dressed in revealing lingerie as a shirtless man stands next to a bed with tiny money and a tiny gun on it.

According to Swanson and her son, Darold Swanson, as a child Benita ran from the Nazi invasion of her home country of Lithuania. She started building miniatures, they said, because she did not have a lot of toys as a child.

“So as an adult she created her own worlds,” Debbie Swanson said.

Darold Swanson said he remembers seeing his grandmother with tweezers and a magnifying glass, making sure her creations were exactly right.

“She was very gifted,” he said, remembering trips with her to Pike’s Place Market to see the miniatures there. “I’m just amazed at how she took the time to do something like this.”

Benita Swanson’s miniatures are on display and for sale at A-1, 309 Wells Ave. S. in Renton.