A Word About Scale

1:12 Scale Dollhouse

The majority of dollhouse miniatures are created in 1:12 scale, also called 1 inch scale.   With that scale, 1" equals one foot in real life.   Half-inch and quarter-inch scales are also very popular but far too small for our project!   There's also "Playscale" (also known as 1:6 or 2" scale) which results in houses and furnishings twice as large as 1 inch scale.  A 3-story house can be very large...over 4 feet tall!   This is a scale generally suited to small children or to fit  fashion dolls (ie, Barbie or American Girl).   However, for the $5 Dollhouse Fixer-Upper, I'll be making a dollhouse for a child using 1" scale and all my notes will be for 1" scale unless I say otherwise!

Read What Scale's Right for Me? at Jim's Printables for more information.

Even though Playscale is for children, many dolls and furnishings can be found in one-inch scale which would also be suitable for children (over 3).   The Loving Family dolls and the Melissa & Doug dollhouse furnishings are two reasonably priced product lines that come to mind.

You might ask:   "I bought a used dollhouse at a yard sale, how do I know which scale it is?

Don't worry....checking for 1 inch scale is simple math (other scales can be more complicated...LOL).

 My $5 dollhouse, for instance,  has a ceiling height of 9" for all the first floor and the 2nd floor rooms.   This corresponds to a 9 foot ceiling height in a real house.  Good!  Many older homes will have a 9 foot ceiling height, although modern homes usually have 8 foot ceilings.   Also, the rooms are 12" deep, which corresponds to 12 feet in 1" scale.  A 12 foot wide room is a fairly normal (but small) room dimension in a real house.  Based on those dimensions, 1"scale furniture should fit well in my dollhouse.

The Ugly Duckling

So, here it is...the Five Dollar Dollhouse!  A yard sale find that I intend to turn from an ugly duckling into a swan.  It actually looked a lot worse than this when I bought it ...this is the "cleaned-up" house in the 'before' photo.  All of the moldy carpeting and ugly torn wallpaper has already been removed along with most of the broken cabinets.  I forgot to take a photo first!  Dang!    But, the old wooden house is solid and pretty darn close to 1" (1/12) scale with 9 inch (9 foot) ceilings, so it'll be nice to work with. 

When it's all fixed up, this dollhouse will be a gift for a 4yr old girl, so buying those fragile and expensive miniatures usually found in a dollhouse shop just isn't going to be practical.   Consequently, this project will be an exercise in creativity because I will be making most of the furnishings and I don't intend to spend much money in the process!   Follow this WIP and I'll share some money-saving, tight-budget tips along with links to online dollhouse resources.   I'll also share my mistakes so maybe we can all learn from them!  LOL ;-)