Doll House Renovation

A few months ago my sister texted me a picture of this unfinished doll's house which she'd found in an op shop:

She said "it's $20, interested?"
I said "YES!"

I love doll houses and have always wanted to decorate one, but lacked the necessary carpentry skills to actually build one, so this was the perfect solution.

It was clearly handmade, as there were a few dodgy spots where the doorframes didn't exactly line up and the screws came through the ceilings.  One room had started being decorated - there was felt carpet, banisters, window frames and a door with a tiny, perfect little brass door knob!  Whoever started it clearly had big plans.  From the pencil marks on the front I think they were going to do it up in the style of an English country cottage, the kind with a thatched roof and black cross beams against a whitewashed front.

Well, apologies to them, wherever they are, but I had different ideas.  I wanted to do it in a much more simple, modern style.  Colourful but pretty basic.  Not a realistic, meticulous scale model of a real house, just something fun to play with.

I started by cleaning it and ripping up the felt that had been glued down in one room and on the stairs.  I painted the whole thing white, first a base coat and then a top coat of white glossy enamel.  I didn't bother with the floors and back walls of each room, as I wanted to put down craft paper for the floors and ceilings, but I did the side walls to make the papering easier.

I also painted all of the furniture that had come with it, a hodge-podge of random different pieces, mainly chairs, tables and beds - no kitchen or bathroom furniture.  I bought from Spotlight two pads of craft paper, one had wooden floorboards or carpet type textures, and the other had funky patterns in bright colours that could work as wallpaper.  I carefully measured & cut them with a craft knife & glued them down with craft glue.

I also bought some glue stuff, a bit like mod podge I think, that was meant to be a 'protective coating' for paper surfaces.  I wanted to paint this over the paper walls & floors so that they didn't start peeling up or get ripped (my daughter has a tendency to find any loose edge & pick at it until it rips.)  It worked quite well in some rooms but in others, randomly, it made the paper go all puckery when it dried and looked awful!  I was so disappointed.  I had to rip off the paper from one room and re-do it all, which was annoying, so I didn't risk painting all of the rooms.

This is the finished outside of the house, which I left quite plain on purpose, because it's going to be facing the wall anyway and won't be seen.  The window on the right is blank because it's covered by cupboards in the kitchen!

Good quality doll house furniture is hard to find in Adelaide, I realised after looking around for quite a while.  The only stuff I could find was cheap, ugly & plastic.  I do like the stuff that's made for Sylvanian Families (which IS plastic, but nice quality & cute designs), and you can get that from toy shops here so I bought a few things, but the bigger Sylvanian furniture pieces aren't really the right scale for my house, so the kitchen & bathroom sets I bought from eBay.

Here's the finished house!

The people are made by a French toy company called Djeco.  I LOVE all their doll house furniture too but it's extremely expensive, especially to order from Australia. I splurged on the people because they're worth it, but couldn't afford anything else.

The parents are apparently named Milo & Lila, or possibly Miles & Mila, I've seen various different alternatives, apparently it gets a bit lost in translation.  I also have the baby ('Sweetie'!) but the children were not given names so I'll let my daughter name them when she is old enough.

The kitchen is the room I am most proud of even though I didn't actually do much to make it look so good!  The beautiful cupboard sets, fridge & microwave all came from eBay.  The tiny food and utensils are from Sylvanian Families.

Milo & Lila's bedroom.  The wardrobe came with the house but was repainted.  The double bed I found in a wooden toy shop in Victor Harbour (the ones that came with the house were only single beds) and I repainted it and made the bedding from scraps of fabric I had.  The tiny suitcase I inherited inamongst a pile of old barbie doll things when my Nana died.  The cot came with Baby Sweetie!

The bathroom - toilet, mirror, basin & tub are from eBay - they are all real porcelain!  We had a porcelain bathroom set in my dollshouse when I was little and I simply couldn't accept anything LESS!  The other little details are from Sylvanians.

Sister's room - bed came with it (repainted, bedding made by me).  The teddy I have had since I was a child and can't remember where I got him.  The pictures and clock on the wall were cut out from an ikea catalogue & glued on.


It looks a little bare still so I'd like to find some more furniture or details for this one, maybe a rug for the floor or some tiny bunting.

Brother's room - again, a little bare, I'd like to add some more furniture here too.

Dining room.  Furniture all came with it, except Baby Sweetie's high chair and the little tea trolley (Sylvanians).  The food and utensils are mainly Sylvanian too but some of it was a gift that someone brought me back from Taiwan, miniature plastic food that they found there, who knows what it was meant to be for?

Living room.  The banisters and window frames had been put in this room so I left them there, although I probably won't bother putting them in any of the other rooms.  The chairs came with it but I repainted them and made the cushions.  The TV and cupboard it's standing on (including the teensy remote) came from eBay.  The fireplace was from the wooden toy shop in Victor Harbor and the tiny urn was a gift my sister brought back from Greece.  The tiny painting on the wall was made by my clever husband!

That's it for now, there are two 'spare rooms' upstairs which haven't really got much in them at present, but that leaves me a bit of scope down the track to add some more things later on.