The Dollhouse

The dollhouse was finally finished last month. It took me fourteen months of off and on work to get it done. And it was the most exciting and enjoyable experience. It got a lot of appreciation from family, friends and strangers, which was very gratifying too. Here is the grand tour of the completed dollhouse for my blog.

This is the front of the house, which is detachable. The brick and stone detailing is all egg-carton painted and cut into form. The door and window panes are out of popsicle sticks.

 The larger plants are from craft store while I made the flowers for the window boxes out of air-dry clay. These are detachable and the girls can rearrange them according to their preference.

My father-in-law made me the awesome hinges for the door. I fashioned the lock from my jewelry making supplies.

The night view.

The right side of the house is simply wall with some windows. Same goes for the back.

The left side of the housed is more interesting with a balcony and a chimney below it, which houses the batteries for the house lights.

This is the front of the house, detached.

And its inner view.

Coming to the interior of the house, it has a living room and a kitchen on the ground floor and the bedroom and the washroom on the top floor.

The circular staircase leads up from the kitchen to the bedroom.

I probably blogged about the living room earlier, but here it is again in its completed state.

All the furnishing were made from scratch, except for the flower on the side table which is actually an eraser and has been placed by my daughter as an accent piece.

The sofa turned out just perfect but as I was just starting when I put together this living room, the curtains and wood paneling are not very finely done.

The doorway leading into the kitchen. Again the stairs are a bit crude, them too being an earlier construction.

This is one of the cutest corners of the house. The dining set is simple and sturdy and the curtains tie together the look. I added the picture frame and the clock as last-minute details.

The kitchen cabinents, sink and stove were all custom-made to fit into the available space. The shelf doors are a bit wonky (again the learning curve thing)but they do open, as do the shelves under the sink, the oven and the drawers.

There is the frigde tucked into the conrner. It was a tricky piece to make.

Moving onto the top floor, here is the balcony. This is another one of my favorite parts of the house. It has large-sliding doors which lead into the bedroom. I thought it would be cool to have the vine climbing around to the side wall from the front.

I made a lounging chair for the balcony,

...and a laundry rack. Both are made of popsicle sticks and are foldable.

Interior view from the balcony.

The bedroom still need a rug and I might crochet one some day.

The bunk bed was a requested piece and the one which made me realize just how tall the barbie dolls are. It also made me revise the house master plan and construct a dormer window, as I did not want the barbie bumping her head against the low ceiling.

The wardrobe with sliding doors was also a requested piece but it has proven to be inadequate to accommodate the barbies' expanding wardrobe. We might have to add some more storage soon.

The dressing table corner is another cute one. It leads to the bathroom.

 

 

 Of course the dollhouse MUST have a fully detailed bathroom, no matter that most of it is hidden behind a curtain (which is also a MUST, a doll needs its privacy).

This concludes the very picture-intensive dollhouse tour. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed making and sharing this project.

Dollhouse: Living Room Snippets

Continuing with the dollhouse, the first room put together was the living room. I started with a sofa, made of fabric scraps and cardboard.  It is upholstered in some leftover cotton from one of my sewing projects.

The I used the popsicles sticks to make a coffee table and a side table. These were later painted brown.

The rug took the most amount of time. It tòk me two weeks to latch-hook this thing. It used up one of the oldest yarns in my stash, but was a lot of work.

I also made some curtains. I'm not sure about them but the girls like them and my husband told me to move on.

Next I did some wall art and built a TV. (My six-year old want me to turn a cellphone into a TV so as to have one with some action.) And a table to go with it. And you can also see a clock there. I rimmed it with green crystal beads.

The wall art for the other wall.

And lastly, I made a chandelier for the room, just yesterday.

The room in its enirety will be posted in the final dollhouse post. Next post, the kitchen highlights.

Making of A Dollhouse

It all started when my eldest daughter wanted a dollhouse and I offered to make her one. I had built one before, when she was smaller, but it was pretty basic. It was made of thin cardboard and was unfurnished. She had very little interest in dolls and their houses at that time. My younger one played with it, but it did not have a chance of lasting _ flimsy as it was _ in the hands of a toddler.

So, I thought now was my opportunity to improve on dollhouse design, and go the whole nine yards. This one is going to be for barbie-sized dolls and is going to be fully furnished. I am utilizing all available resources and skills at my disposal. At the moment of writing this post, I am about 65% done and it is coming together nicely. Not a masterpiece, but good enough for a child's dollhouse.

As for the materials, it is being constructed out of cardboard, popsicle sticks, paper and hot glue being the other essential components. Before actually starting the construction, I measured out the area where it is supposed to go, and calculated the dimensions of the whole thing, as well as the different rooms. I had a basic plan in my head and after a few youtube videos, and lots of inspiration from pinterest, I was good to go.

 Now for some action shots, I started with a sturdy double cardboard base and then put up the walls. I wallpapered them at the same time.

These first windows were very tricky. Initially I tried bamboo sticks to make the window frames but those did not hold well. Later, I ripped them out and used the popsicle sticks. (These popsicle sticks must be the unsung heroes of the paper craft world. I feel sorry that I discovered them so late. And they are very inexpensive too.) At this point, the kids informed me that the dolls must have a staircase to get to the upper floor. To maximise room space, I attempted a spiral staircase. My skills were very rusty at that point and it is not very neat but I covered it in tape and it became satisfactory.

 Next, I put a wooden floor in the living room, with the popsicle sticks. Because I ran out of paper for a wall, that wall got some wooden panelling. It was at this point that the actual magnitude of the project hit me. It was going to take me a few montns, at least, to get this done. Since then, I have been tackling it, one task at a time, and that has worked really well. Back to the living room, you can see the new window panes. The staircase fit best in the kitchen/ dining area, so it went there.

After sanding the floor ( that aiming-for-the-whole-nine-yards thing), I painted it with a mix of water colors and acrylic colors. I did not have a brown color then, and had to mix up red, blue and black. This shows in the color variation on the floor. It was such a relief when I actually got a brown, that I am OK with the vareigated look.

In the next post, inshaAllah, some more details from the living room, including curtains, wall art and furniture.