DIY dollhouse

Just as boys dream of a tree house, girls also dream of a dollhouse for their favorite toys. Of course, you can buy it, but a good house costs absolutely indecent money, and you can't buy a bad child. It's another matter to do it yourself, but be prepared for the fact that it will take a long time. Especially if you don't have too much experience. On average, it will take at least a week to make a house for dolls with your own hands.

Choosing a material

You can make a house for dolls with your own hands from any sheet building material. The thickness of the material for a house with a height of about a meter (for two floors) is 9-15 mm, for one-story houses it can be thinner. Consider the most common materials used to build a dollhouse:

• Plywood... An excellent choice, since it is durable, holds its shape well, can be glued, connected with nails and self-tapping screws. Plywood is cut with a metal saw (with a fine tooth), a jigsaw (manual or electric). The ends will need to be well sanded so that there is no way to drive the splinter. Upon completion of work, you can varnish or stain, paint, wallpaper, etc.
  

  Doll houses are most often made of plywood.

• Drywall. After the repair, there are scraps that can be used. To fasten the sheets together, you will need tin corners (you can use a perforated corner). You will have to fix it on special screws, but they will stick out from the back, so the option is not the best. You can try to "plant" on glue, but you will have to align the cut lines to reduce glue consumption.
  

  A plasterboard dollhouse is one of the possible options

• OSB (OSB)... In terms of properties, the material is similar to plywood, with the only difference that it is moisture resistant and made of wood chips. Working with it is about the same as with plywood.
  

  OSB is also a good material

• Cardboard. The most inexpensive and most delicate material that does not hold loads very well. The situation is better with scrapbooking cardboard (you can buy it in craft stores). It is more dense and durable, you can make one-story houses or use for roofing. Connect with glue or staples from a stapler. In order for the dollhouse to be more reliable, it is better to assemble the frame from the planks, and then cover it with cardboard.
  

  A house for Barbie or other not very large dolls can be made of cardboard

• Chipboard ordinary or laminated (Chipboard). The advantage of this material is that it may already be finished. If you wish, you can order the sawing of the entire "box" of the house with gluing the edges in some furniture company. Then it only remains to collect. Moreover, it will be possible to use self-tapping screws or furniture fittings. There are three minuses - the material is too thick, due to which the mass increases, formaldehyde release and fragility under lateral loads. If you can put up with the thickness and mass, then the release of formaldehyde should not be ignored. It is necessary to search with the emission class E0-E1. Unfortunately, nothing can be done with fragility. Unless you use corners to connect parts, and this is not too beautiful.
  

  The chipboard house can support the weight of the child

• Furniture boards. They are made of wooden planks glued with wood glue. Ideal for making a dollhouse: environmentally friendly, durable, easy to handle. But furniture panels cannot be called cheap, although they are not as expensive as an array. In any case, it can be taken to make a box - bottom, side walls and overlap.The roof and back wall can be made of other materials (e.g. fiberboard, plastic, etc.).
  

  Furniture board is an environmentally friendly and beautiful material

There are also options such as laminate, wooden lining, thin planed board. But they do not work with them so often. In any case, the minimum thickness of materials is 6-7 mm. Then the dollhouse will be reliable and even withstand your child.

Features of working with plywood

Most often, plywood is used in the manufacture of a dollhouse. As you probably know, it can be of different brands. It is better to make a dollhouse with your own hands from polished furniture plywood. You can use them from conifers, but preferably from birch. It is better not to take a construction one, although it costs half the price.

In general, it is not difficult to work with plywood. If you have a jigsaw and grinders, cutting and preparation of parts will take a couple of hours. The only difficulty that can arise in the manufacture of a two-story house for dolls from plywood is the installation of the ceiling of the second floor. T-fastening plywood is not an easy task.

We need to come up with a fastening of floors

The glue is not very reliable, and it is difficult to try to install fasteners such as self-tapping screws with a thickness of 6 mm in the end face - the material can split, even with preliminary drilling of holes (the thinnest self-tapping screw is 1.8 mm). There are several options:

• to do on nails (not too reliable, except perhaps to additionally coat with glue);
• install the corners at the bottom (not very nice);
• put a glazing bead around the perimeter, which will both support the floor and "work" with a ceiling plinth (the best option).

After cutting out the parts, all joints must be well sanded. First, they take sandpaper on wood with medium grain, gradually switch to fine. When the edge is smooth, you can start assembling.

Dollhouse project

The first thing to start with building a dollhouse is to create a project. It is necessary to decide on the height and number of floors, the width of the room, the type of roof, whether or not there will be a basement floor. Choose the number of storeys as you wish. This is arbitrary, but all other parameters must be calculated.

The size of the dollhouse depends on the size of the doll inhabitants. To play comfortably, the height of the ceilings in the rooms should be at least twice the height of the doll. For example, with a doll height of 22 cm, ceilings of 40-45 cm will give enough space for them to move freely, but if the ceilings are even higher, it will be even more convenient to play. But you also need to take into account the height of the child. The height of the topmost slab should be just below eye level. In this case, it will be convenient to play, and the dollhouse will be "for growth" - it will be enough in height for a couple of years.

The depth of the doll rooms also depends on the height of the dolls, but also on the availability of free space. On average, the depth is 30-45 cm. This is enough to accommodate the entire environment. But it could be deeper.

This is approximately the same you need to do before starting work.

The width of the dollhouse depends on the number of rooms in it. Here you are determined depending on the available free space. In shape, the frame of a dollhouse usually looks like a rectangle, but if it is elongated in length or in height - each is determined by himself. If the design turns out to be rather big, furniture wheels can be attached to the bottom. It is very convenient - the toy is mobile.

You can draw the project itself in any design program, but if you don't own them, it's easier to do it on paper. Why do you need a dollhouse project? To calculate the amount of materials required for its manufacture, and without the size and number of walls, you will definitely be mistaken.

Finishing features

Decorating a dollhouse with your own hands raises no less questions than construction. In principle, you can use the same finishing method as in apartments or houses. For example, in doll rooms, walls can be finished in the following ways:

• Paint. Only you need to take a special paint that is allowed for use in children's and medical institutions. It can be any type of composition, but the best choice is perhaps a water-based washable paint. It is not too expensive, does not smell when painting, it can be wiped off, it can be easily tinted in any color.
• Glue the wallpaper. If you have plain wallpaper left over from repair, this is a good option. But the remnants with a pattern are unlikely to work, since the pattern is usually too large for miniature rooms. For such a case, you can find a sample wallpaper on the Internet and print it on a color printer. By the same technology, by the way, it is possible to make "linoleum" or "parquet" - print, stick, cover at least with a layer of PVA. For full believability, use varnish or epoxy.
  

  Easier to glue the wallpaper before assembly

If you have chosen the "wallpaper" option, it is easier to do this before the assembly stage. Even if there are several floors, the workpieces are drawn, wallpaper is glued. It's much easier than trying to tape the corners later.

The exterior finish is not much different. Painting is the most commonly used. This is the best option in terms of practicality and labor costs. If you want, you can do something similar to decorative plaster. It can be imitated with gray toilet paper. Only you need to choose thicker. It is torn into pieces, glued with PVA diluted with water (1 to 1), laid out on the walls, forming the desired relief. After drying, it can be painted using acrylic paints. it decoupage technique and it can be used with colored or regular napkins.

Window and door decoration

Cutting windows in plywood, OSB, and any other material is not such a problem. To begin with, using a drill and a drill, make a hole into which the saw blade can be passed. Further - a matter of technology. The cut hole is polished, bringing to smoothness, and then it is necessary to make the holes made look like windows. This requires frames, curtains. If you wish, you can also make glass from transparent plastic bottles.

A lot depends on the details

Bound frames can be made of white cardboard. Stick them after the completion of the "finishing work". Children love to open / close doors, so it is better to make them from thin plywood. Fasteners can be found - there are piano hinges or small furniture hinges. Bolts can be made from wire and thin tubes.

Let there be light!

A dollhouse with lighting is aerobatics. And there is no need to fence the system of wires, converters, light bulbs and other electrical "stuffing". There is a very simple and effective solution. In any more or less large lighting store there are small LED lamps that run on batteries. Moreover, they are mounted with Velcro. Each lamp is equipped with its own switch, operates on a voltage of several volts. In general, a very good way out.

These are non-volatile LED lamps

If you still want to make a real light in the dollhouse, you need a 220/12 V converter or a battery with the appropriate voltage. You will also need light bulbs or LED strip for the corresponding value, a bunch of wires. In general, this path is much more difficult and takes much more time, but it is also a possible option.

How to make a roof

If the roof is planned to be an ordinary one - gable, the layout of the attic space or attic floor must be made so that there is a partition in the center that will support the roof at the junction of the two halves of the roof. This is the easiest way. There are also more complex ones.

The roof on the dollhouse can be done in different ways can be done in different ways

If you need a roof of a complex shape, we cut out several rafters from plywood, which will set the shape. We attach them to the walls, sheathe them with some flexible material. It can be cardboard, fiberboard. The ends of the rafters are coated with glue (preferably carpentry), after which the material is laid.If the bend is too steep, additional hardware may be needed. Usually thin, small, shoe-like nails are used.

Photo options for different doll houses

Building a dollhouse is a creative process. It can be made the way you dream to see your house, recreate a house from a fairy tale or fantasy. And there are no restrictions here. Anything you want and how you want.

Can be made from boards, and the back wall from fiberboard

Two-story doll house with a garage and a track above it

Something like this we do a gable roof

House for dolls in a modern style

A one-story house is also not so bad. But you can put it on the table and play while sitting

The height of the ceilings in the doll room should be twice the height of the dolls

You can even make a castle for dolls

The dollhouse should be slightly taller than your child

So different…

Can be done very much like a real house

Any house can be made

Decorating methods are very different

So do the shutters

We make tiles from painted pieces of cardboard