Decorating the Playroom

The top floor of the $5 dollhouse has height limitations due to the gable roof.  I decided to decorate this as a generic playroom so granddaughter could use it in many different ways, not just as bedroom.    This room was decorated at practically no cost.   I also made some furnishings for it at little cost, which I'll show later.

The floor in this room of the original $5 dollhouse was in very bad shape with old glue and other things stuck to it. I could have covered it in carpet, I guess, but I wanted a wood floor here. 

Instead of trying to sand and fix the original floor, I used a piece of thin plywood to cover up the original floor. Before giving it an acrylic finish, I used a pencil to draw lines to represent the gap between floorboards.   Photo here shows vertical lines added.   Randomly spaced horizontal lines would be drawn to represent the length of each board.  You could also make the width of each board more random than I did.   Additionally, if you like, you could add a couple of dots at end of each board to represent the nail heads in a more rustic floor.

Once the wood is coated with an acrylic finish, the pencil lines & indentations make it look like real flooring.   Be sure to use a ruler and measure for accurate straight lines!  ;-)

Tip:  I made a paper pattern first before cutting plywood for floor.   This gives exact dimensions, especially when room isn't perfectly square.   You could use a brown paper grocery bag to make pattern.

I didn't glue this floor down.  It fit well enough where glue wasn't needed.   Also, by not being glued down the wood floor could expand and contract with the humidity and hopefully,  avoid any problems.

Because the floor wasn't glued down, I removed it to paint and wallpaper.

I found a 'Dora the Explorer' wallpaper border printable that was the exact same height as the short wall in the room.  I think I found it at Jennifer's Printables ...I'll have to check and get back to you on that!

 All kids love Dora, so I settled on that.   The walls were painted a corresponding blue using Americana Craft Paint. It required a couple of coats!

Photo shows close-up of wallpaper border
(and also some of  the bumps and gunk on the original floor!)

I stumbled upon a printable of a small hexagon window and thought it would fit well on the back wall.   After I printed out the window, it was sprayed with a fixative so ink wouldn't bleed when I glued it.   Also, it was glued to a piece of cardboard first, just to give it a little dimension.  Finished room is below.

Decorating the Pink Bedroom

For the pink bedroom I will be using a variety of materials.   The pink-striped paper shown in the photo above is 12"x12" scrapbooking paper purchased on sale.    The purple and pink pattern is a printable butterfly wallpaper border.    The pink fabric shown above is a felt square I originally planned to use for carpeting.   It was the right color but I also thought it was a little thin for carpeting.   When I saw some plush fleece on sale,  I thought it would work much better as it was thicker, with more pile.   You can see it in finished room below.

The first step was painting the room bubblegum pink.  I just used craft paint for this.   One coat was enough because the walls had been primed first.

Next I used thinned Elmer's Glue as wallpaper paste to attach the striped scrapbook paper as wainscoting.   By only covering half the wall, one sheet was enough for the whole room.

After wallpaper dried, I added the border.   Multiple copies of the border were printed out as a full page (using good quality paper) and sprayed with a matte sealer before using (otherwise the ink may bleed).    Then borders were carefully cut out and glued to top of wainscoting, which, as planned, lined up with bottom of window.   No cutting around window was needed.

For the carpet, I made a paper pattern first, to make sure I got the size correct the first time.    Because this is a recycled dollhouse, I suspected all walls weren't perfectly square....and they weren't!  The center wall was a bit off-square, but not too noticeable to be concerned with.    Below is the finished pink bedroom.

The carpet was glued down, but only a few spots of glue in corners and along front edge.   I used fabric glue for this because other glues might bleed through the carpet and leave a dark spot!

I didn't make any curtains for the windows.    I may do that later....or just wait until the kids get older before adding those kind of details.    So far, so good!  ;-)    Next we'll tackle the bathroom.

Painted Landscaping

Onlay attached to right side

The painted Masonite cutout (onlay) to represent landscaping is done and attached to house!   Not the world's greatest paint job... (I'm running short on time to finish!! ....*G*....no time to fuss!)....but it's suppose to be cute and cartoon-y anyway, not realistic.    The idea was to add some bright colors and things that the kids would enjoy looking at....but still keep it simple.    (See previous post to see steps taken to cutout before painting.)

Onlay glued to left side

The birdhouses are added on as an additional layer of wood for a little dimension.   I also added some window shutters.   Another excuse for adding spots of color.  Nothing complicated about the shutters, just an easy-to-make rectangle of thin wood with a painted heart to dress it up.

That pretty well finishes up what I plan to do with exterior!

Decorating With Shrubs and Trees

For this low-cost, kid-friendly dollhouse, I decided to paint shrubs, trees and other plantings onto side of house instead of using any easily damaged and potentially unsafe materials.   To make painting easier on myself (and also give it a little dimension), I created an "onlay" for the shrubs out of some scrap Masonite.

Landscaping started out looking like this:

Using some basic tole painting techniques....we have created a nice row of trees and shrubs to apply to each side of the house.  Basecoat with medium foliage green.  Imagine some shrub shapes and, using a stippling motion,  highlight one side of with a light foliage green and the other side with a deep green.   I made no attempt at realistic shapes......just ellipses...puffy ball shapes!

This decorative onlay is not quite done.   I plan on adding some flowers and birdhouses for added color.  I promise I will show you the finished photos soon.  I also plan on adding some shutters to the windows to dress things up a bit more!   The black and white checks are there just because I like checks and it also adds a little whimsey.  ;-) 

Tip:   Notice that the red color of the house is painted between the branches of the tree.   That makes cutting out the onlay shape a whole bunch easier!  No tiny branches to cut!   Once it's applied to house, you'll never notice!

Faux-painted Dollhouse Shingles

Gosh!   I can't believe a week has gone by already and I haven't updated the tale of the roof re-do on the dollhouse!  I've been so busy working on the house, I just haven't had time to talk about it!   Sorry! ;-)

If you've been following along from the start, you know that my first attempt at applying a printable pattern of asphalt shingles ran into a number of problems (mostly with printing).    After a few frustrating attempts I tore the glued on paper "roofing" off and started over by painting the roof a basecoat of medium brown.   This has to be a kid-friendly roof treatment...so, no shingles (until child gets older).  The plan is to paint some faux asphalt shingles for the dollhouse!

New Plan for Roof

Because I had so much trouble with the printables for this roof (see previous post), I soaked all the paper and removed it.   After a bit of glue removal, it's ready to start over.   btw...Removing the printable paper and glue wasn't too bad a job at all...went fairly easy.    But now I've painted the roof a medium brown as a basecoat for the new painted faux-shingles!    I'll share some step-by-step photos of the faux painting next!

There's a lot of inexpensive, recycled things that can be used to shingle a dollhouse, but this dollhouse is being designed for a child, so I don't want to use anything that can break (sharp edges) or fall off.   I've seen shingles made of sandpaper, egg carton cardboard, real shingles (cut to size), pine cone "tiles" ....many other things.   Leave a comment if you have a shingle idea to add to list!

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.

Step One: Clean-up and Prime

Well, the above photo is how the $5 dollhouse looks AFTER "some" cleanup.  It really did look a LOT worse before I took this photo!    There's still lots of glue clumps to sand off before priming (these are from the old glued down carpeting).   In this 'before' photo I still have one more broken 'wall cabinet' to pry off the wall and some nail heads and nail points to either remove or reset.

Here's how inside looks after cleaning and priming.   Much better, huh?

Will work on outside next.