This dollhouse thing is turning out to be way more fun than I had ever hoped it would be. And to my surprise, the diying is my favorite part. Fiona and I have tried to make as much of the furnishings as possible, both to save money and just for the craftiness of it.
Below is my inspiration board for creating the miniature dollhouse kitchen.
But as hard as I tried, I could not come up with a good way of creating the kitchen well enough to make it look right. So I scoured the internet for something affordable and finally found a plain, wooden kitchen set on Ebay for about $25. A steal in the miniatures world.
Here is the plain-Jane set as I bought it:
Nothing amazing, but all the better for renovating, in my opinion. I knew I wanted a black and white kitchen, with some sort of tile wall. JoAnn's had a great sale on craft paper books, so we bought one for about $5 that had a few patterns that I thought would work well as backsplash.
The first step was removing the kitchen knobs and painting the stove and sink unit black. I added a gloss clear coat to the stove so it would look like an appliance finish. I popped off the faucets on the sink and left the wooden top to look like butcher block counter. The fridge was painted white, as I didn't want too much black to overpower a small room.
After the units were painted, I cut some small dowels leftover from the a staircase railing and sprayed them gold. Those were then glued on the cabinets and appliance doors to look like modern brass cabinet pulls. I love how they turned out.
I wanted to buy a stove hood, but just couldn't bring myself to pay for one. So I pulled out my flimsy balsa wood sheets and cut and glued and painted a simple oven hood that I'm over the moon about. I want a life-sized one!
But the best part of the entire room is the sink. I wanted a farm or vessel-type sink and happened to find a small Altoids tin in my junk drawer. After prying the lid off (to be used elsewhere) I spray painted the bottom white and added a faucet made from dowels bits glued together. How cute is that?
The floor was looking a little bare, so a rug was in order. I went to my fabric scraps and found a leftover bit of drop cloth, traced a circle, and drew a pattern with a Sharpie. Voila.
The jars were purchased at Michael's and I filled them with real spices and glued the corks in to protect against spillage.
That's it for the kitchen. Actually, this dollhouse was sold at a fundraiser auction last spring. So I am currently remodeling two more dollhouses that I found via Craigslist.
What do you think of my miniature kitchen?