Exterior: Patch, Repair, Prime & Paint

Painting a coat of primer on your wood dollhouse is important for a number of reasons.      If it is a recycled dollhouse, it can cover a multitude of sins!  It will seal all the wood putty and patching that might be necessary and give you an even-colored basecoat to work from (instead of the multi-color charmer I started with!)   If it is a brand new dollhouse, from a kit or homemade, it seals the bare wood and makes the top coat of paint go on smoother.  

Any walls that will be wallpapered should be painted (primed) first but there are times when painting first won't be necessary, such as a roof that will be shingled.  In our case, we'll be printing out faux shingles to glue to the roof...and that is the same as wallpapering....so I've primed the roof along with every other square inch.

On the outside of the $5 dollhoouse there's a lot of splitting of the wood to repair before we can even start painting!!    Some serious wood patch was needed on one corner...but it came out OK.

If you see a dollhouse like this at a yard sale...it CAN be repaired...as long as most of the wood is good.    I repaired this splitting by first removing the loose and peeling bits of wood and filled the space with wood putty. After painting it looks pretty good.  

I painted everything white first with a latex primer.   The finish coat for the exterior was also latex paint, not craft paint (satin finish latex).   I think latex will be more durable for the exterior but I will paint interior rooms and trims with craft paint.  

I considered enlarging the windows before priming and painting, but decided to leave well enough alone and not make problems for myself!   LOL    The existing windows are not quite to scale and have rounded corners...but this is going to be a dollhouse for a child.   I won't be purchasing (or even making) miniature windows.   If I was re-furbishing this house for myself and planning on furnishing it with miniature collectibles, I would have definitely taken the time to re-cut the windows to a standard shape and scale.

See....that damaged corner is all fixed...good as new!

A niice, soft Country Red was selected for house color  (better for house, I thought, than a bright primary red)!    I will be trimming this in white and probably add shutters for the windows.   I thought red & white was a happy color combination that a child would appreciate!   At this point in time, I plan on decorating the interior with a lot of red and white gingham but, even if I don't, I think a muted Country Red is almost a neutral color and should coordinate well with whatever color is used on the inside.

I will be using 'printables' to faux-shingle the roof.   That'll be next!  (....after I paint out that drip of white paint I just spotted on the side of the house!!!   Looks like a bird just flew by & left a deposit!  LOL)