Dollhouse

So remember a few months ago, the doll house I gave Luci for her Birthday? I said I'd post pictures of it later and I finally am (a little later than planned). A year ago I ran across a blog with this cool play kitchen she made out of an old Entertainment Center. I really wanted to try it, but couldn't justify it since Luci already had a play kitchen. That's when I decided I was going to make a doll house out of something.

I headed to the good will, and was very happy to find this piece of furniture.

It was old and stinky, but had lots of potential.

It had two drawers on bottom and the top opened up to a storage area. I'm not sure what the original purpose of it was, but to me it screamed doll house!

Here's what it looked like during the transformation process.


We took the holey piece of wood off the back and replaced it with a solid piece, took the drawers out and divided it into three levels. The middle shelf was already there, the upper shelf we made with the piece of wood from the front, and the bottom shelf we made with the extra wood from the back.

We sanded, painted, decorated, and furnished it so now it looks like this . . .




The Kitchen

At first I made a movable table with little stools. That was a big mistake!! The pieces were always all over the house, and the chairs wouldn't stay up when Luci tried to put the people on them. That's how I got the idea for a booth table. Now it is easy to slide the people onto the benches and the table keeps them in place. The table is made from a wooden spool and plaque and the benches are made from miniature wooden spools and wooden rulers. The china hutch was a nice dollar find at Michael's and the sink, stove, counter and cupboards were custom made by me out of the some balsa wood we had lying around.


The best and most time consuming part in the kitchen was the wood floor. I made it out of popsicle sticks. I cut them by hand with scissors and glued them down with wood glue. After cutting all those pieces, my thumb was numb for almost two weeks! When the floor was all dry I stained it with watered down brown paint, then "varnished" it with modge podge to make it look shiny.


Everything in the kitchen is glued in place. For me that means, less pieces scattered all over the house!

All the walls in the house were decorated with scrapbook paper that I got at TJmaxx for really cheap. I glued them down with modge podge then put another layer on top to make it look nice.

The Master Bedroom

This room has had changes too. The master bed was one of the first things to break. It has been refurbished with a special foot board made by Luci :). There used to be a crib that I was so proud of, but that was broken too, and I haven't replaced it yet. I made it with the lid half of a wooden box from Michaels and made legs and bars from tiny wooden spools. The carpet in the house was made from the free square samples at Home Depot--all patched together. The couch was made from popsicle sticks then covered with batting and fabric. The blue cupboard was another dollar find at Michaels.

The Attic

In the attic I did a bathroom and a bedroom. Eventually I'd like to install a small wall in between the two rooms, but for now they'll have to do without privacy :)


The bunk bed was made out of popsicle sticks and the mattresses and pillows made out of scraps of fabric (they're hot glued down so they don't move). I made a lot of stuff out of popcicle sticks because we had a gazillion lying around our house.


The toilet was made out of the top of an empty floss container, super glued to the floor. The tub was made out of the bottom half of the wooden chest that I made the crib out of. The sink was carved out of balsa wood by Kirk, and the mirror I had lying around the house.

The only problem with these dolls is you can't take their clothes off. Luci gets frustrated when she can't get them naked to give them baths. As you can tell from the picture, he has to go with his pants up :).

So there you have it! Lots of work, but it was a fun project! All in all, I think I spent about $30 for everything. $15 of the $30 was for the seven dolls! I was able to use a lot of stuff we already had, and got everything else for really cheap.