Using "human"/real carpet in doll houses?

[ooo]

Do you ever?

Why or why not?

I have some real carpet and plan on using it. It's free since I already have it. I guess it's not to scale, but it is nice carpet in a neutral color.

Does doll house furniture not stand up well on real "home" carpet?

[KathieB]

You're right about it not being to scale, and that may or may not be important to you. Depending on the surface texture, furniture placement could be a problem. I'd suggest cutting a piece to size and auditioning it in place before gluing down to see how you like it.

There are other inexpensive ways to do flooring. You may want to use wood in some rooms, linoleum in kitchen/bath, etc. Craft felt makes a good wall-to-wall carpet.

You may also want to think about making a thin cardboard template for each floor (think cereal box thickness). Glue the flooring material to it and don't glue it to the actual floor. That makes it easy to remove to get to wiring or to redecorate when the mood hits.

[havanaholly]

Do you ever?

Never. No

Why or why not?

I prefer that my little houses and their contents be to scale; 1:1 carpet looks HUGE, as you will learn when you use it.

I have some real carpet and plan on using it. It's free since I already have it. I guess it's not to scale, but it is nice carpet in a neutral color

Since you have made up your mind, I'm not sure why you asked. For my two cents' worth, it's YOUR house, do whatever you want. I find that without experiments wee don't discover new ideas..

Does doll house furniture not stand up well on real "home" carpet?

Try it with your little furniture before you install it in your dollhouse. BTW, since it'll be 12 times thicker (if your house is 1:12 scale), then be prepared for your rooms to look shorter and don't use really tall furniture items (like case clocks and buffets with hutches).

Do post pictures of your results.

[SallyG]

^{Absolutely not. The carpet in my real house is not 6" to 8" thick, so why would I put something in my dollhouse that would be the same measurement in scale. I have seen real carpet used in old homemade dollhouses that were made for children and it looks hideous.}

[Mary11]

Nope, never. The pile is too high. The furniture doesn't sit right on it. I don't like the way it looks. To me it just throws everything off. It's your house though. Try it in the room with furniture and see what you think. If you like it then go with it.

[MissElle]

I wouldn't use "real" carpeting either, it just doesn't look right no matter how small the pile. I have found plush fabric that looks good as carpet if you are trying for a more original look , that is inexpensive.

[Gee]

well, i have a little silk persian "carpet". in real life, it is to protect your furniture where your hands lie.

the measurements are perfect, i like the colors and i am not using it anyway in my real house.

i am going to cut the poles to size and see what comes out.

mind you, i am not doing this any time soon, i have a lot of other things to do first

[havanaholly]

Gerda, I've seeen those and I think they'd work in a dollhouse. I've also seen them as bookmarks and I think those work, too. I think the issue is actual 1:1 size carpeting used in a dollhouse.

[CheckMouse]

I wouldn't recommend it - even though it may seem low-pile and useable, by the time it's inside the house it will be all out of proportion. Felt from a craft store, or Joann's Fabric store, makes good carpeting if you don't want to buy the real thing. If money is a problem watch for sales at Hobby Builder's Supply (miniatures.com) or DeJoux Miniatures, and other mini stores and pick up a grab bag on sale.

[ooo]

Thanks for the ideas.

I'll look into craft felt for carpet, silk persian, and sales at miniatures.com.

I'm trying to finish this house for little to no money, so those tips will help. The real carpet is just old remnants I have--free. I also like the idea of taping the carpet down, or taping the felt to cardboard so it's removable.

One day I would like to get the miniature wood flooring or real mini carpet. For now, felt or silk persians or sales sound like a good plan for me.

[havanaholly]

Old sweatshirts turned inside out (with 1:1 scale mini ceramic glazed tiles in the bathroom):

scribing lines for floorboards directly into the plywood floor:

and stitching your own on scraps of old linen:

or painting paper & cutting it out for tiles (paint sample cards also make good DH tile):

are all cheap ways to cover floors.

[sparklepuppies]

You can also find scrapbook paper that can look like tile floors. Or textured paper. I have some paper right now that is really thick textured paper, (reminds me of homemade paper) that I am using to simulate carpet in the current house I'm doing.

Or popsicle, craft, and skinny sticks make great "hardwood" floors.

[havanaholly]

Somethimes you can find a flocked scrapbook paper that looks & feels like mini carpet. Scraps of 1:1 upholstery fabric in wee designs or solids also work (for mini upholstery I love the old polyester neckties!).

[mygrommi]

Holly, love your rug where you stitched pieces of fabric onto linen. Can you share how you did it? It looks like an embroidered rug. I have an embroidery machine and would like to try stitching some mini rugs, but haven't had time yet and patterns are practically non-existent. I played around with combining some embroidery designs into a rug design, but haven't had time to stitch it. Too many ideas and too little time.

Thanks.

Renea

[havanaholly]

Holly, love your rug where you stitched pieces of fabric onto linen...

I don't remember appliiqueing a mini rug; So far I have chainstitched six-strand embroidery floss onto felt to simulate braided rag rugs and I have used scraps of upholstery and other fabrics for rugs, but all the other rugs I've made were petitpoint; I've tried crossstitching and knotting rugs, and they were disasters that went straight into the circular file.

[-defunct account-]

I don't remember appliiqueing a mini rug.....but all the other rugs I've made were petitpoint

I think Renea was looking at this:

"and stitching your own on scraps of old linen"

(please correct me if I'm wrong) and misunderstood how you made it

[Minsanity]

my daughter and I found some upolstry fabric that is textured that we plan to use in her hofco house. I think will look great.

[havanaholly]

That one is petitpoint, and was stitched on a bit of linen remnant I picked up at Jo-Ann's. Because of the thread count it finished small enough for 1:24 scale. I was going to use it in Mildred as an area rug, but right now it's living in the Bar Harbor summer cottage.

[mygrommi]

It really is a pretty rug. Wish I could do petit point

Renea

[havanaholly]

It's basically a half crossstitch, although I've also done mini bargello:

[jennybee]

Sometimes you can find upholstery/fabric samples in furniture stores or joanns. The older versions they often sell for real cheap and the samples are just the right size I have have seen them in joanns for a buck a piece and I was luckily one time a furniture store was closing and they had a whole section walled of with just samples and it was a fit it into a bag and its five bucks. My husband laughed and was really surprised how much I could fit into one of those bags. I went even as far as folding each sample. That was a great mini find day for me I still have a box of it in my craft room ranging from thin silk like fabcic to suade. GL in what you choose and would love to see pics.

[havanaholly]

Renea, I found an applique bit I used as a bathroom rug; is this the one you meant?

It's something I bought at Big Lots, I think it was originally meant for acrapbooking.

[ilovecats]

I think it depends on the look you are going for. I never use it for scale issues, but I recently met a fellow dollhouse hoarder/builder who lives close to me and she used some in a number of her dollhouses and it actually looked really nice.

[havanaholly]

I've used upholstery fabric as rugs and carpet in several houses. It depends on the size of the design and the thickness of the fabric as to how it'll look in scale.