Last winter, I had a lot of fun renovating the colonial dollhouse. Many of you were following along on my old blog, Nancherrow and have followed me here to my new space.
I took the summer off, as we were plenty busy with summery activities. But now that the weather has turned chill and school is back into full swing, I've dusted off my dollhouse projects again.
If you follow me on Instagram, you might remember this beauty, my second dollhouse purchase, that I found for about $20 via Craigslist.
Colorful...right? But I saw potential for an ultra modern, monotone house and couldn't wait to get started.
First, I gave the whole thing a gray, black and white paint job.
I started to paper the first floor main wall with a bold design, but had major issues with bubbles and wrinkles. Removing it cleanly was not a job I wanted to make, so I decided to shiplap the wall with craft sticks.
I l o v e how it turned out.
The dollhouse came with a few furniture items pictured in the stock photo above that I painted and used where possible. Ready to see how it all came together?
You can see how simple the design is-just the great room with kitchen downstairs, and the bedroom and bathroom upstairs.
Starting in the kitchen, which I crafted all by my onsie. I actually made a full set and then realized that my proportions were too large for the scale and had to scratch it and begin again.
The kitchen bar is a Bic pen box covered with wide craft sticks and painted. The counter is cardboard covered with craft paper and painted with a marble finish. The sink is the bottom of an Altoids tin, and the faucet was made with clay, wire tubing, and the spring from inside a pen.
The stove was made from a painted box with a Sucrets tin top, clay for the burners, painted bb pellets for the knobs, and a painted dowel for the handle. The fridge was also made out of a box, with glued balsa to look like doors and dowels for handles.
The bar stools are just blocks of balsa wood that I carved to look like raw wood stumps. I love them.
Moving into the living room, which is quite simple.
Just a painted sofa, a crafted coffee table (balsa) and a rug cut from a Dollar Tree bath mat. The wall TV is just a painted piece of wood. The floor lamp was made by gluing a wooden dowel to a clay base, with the lampshade made from a votive candle tin, all painted black.
Let's go upstairs, shall we?
In here, the bed and vanity table are just pieces that came with different houses that I painted. I also added the mirror to the vanity. I found the steer skull on Ebay and the aloe plant at Pat Catan's. The little block wall to the left of the photo came with the house and were painted to look like play bookshelves. I figured they'd do well as dividers upstairs and I love them there.
The carpet is cut from a Dollar Tree chamois. The pillow was made with sweater pieces, stuffing, and glue.
Bath:
The flooring is craft paper. The toilet and tub came with the house and got painted white. I glued the mirror and crafted the sink and faucet and glued onto the 'wall.' Simple, simple.
That's the whole house. Kind of a tiny house version of a dollhouse, no?
Pretty cool, huh?
I have one more finished house to show you, and one that I'm working on. This dollhouse will probably be donated to our youth auction in the Spring, but the next one I show you is one that I'm keeping, I think. I've gotten rather attached.
