Eveline's Dollhouse

[Steve Panner]

I've started a scratch build of a simple dollhouse for my daughter.

As Holly suggested in one of my threads, best suited for such a young girl are the Sugarplum and the Buttercup.

At first I wanted to buy one of them, but high shipping costs and other small inconveniences made me change my mind.

Since I have a small workshop, I think I should give it a try to build one from scratch. I plan to make it sturdier, to withstand a toddler abuse, and use materials I already have so I won't cry too much when she finally breaks it.

Anyway, at first I made this cardboard mock-up to give me some sense of scale. I used Sketchup at first but the forced perspective of the software distorted everything, and nothing can beat the feel of a real object.

It is obviously inspired by most small dollhouses in existence, with some tweaks to better suit such a small child:

- it is not as deep so she can reach everything easily;

- it has a side entrance so she can play with dolls inside and out without having to turn it around;

- like I said it will be from thicker wood so she won't break it as easy as an adult dollhouse;

- the design is simplified to accommodate my lack of time and skills.

- in the beginning will have no details, no windows or doors, like Holly suggested and just simple paint on the walls and floors. If it is a success I'll slowly add details later.

- I designed it with some additions in mind, like front entrance, porch, basement, a dog house and landscaping, but I will add those over the years if it proves a success.

I have some concerns about this build and I might never really finish it:

- making it sturdier will also make it heavy and don't know if my daughter will like that. She now moves the cardboard one around the room, but the wood one will have to sit in one place.

- there is a big chance she will get bored of it fast. She does that with most toys.

- since I make it from scratch with no plans I have to assemble it before I start finishing the walls and floors, so it will be harder to do that later. Great thing for a beginner

- there are some things I don't know how to do, like the compound angles for the roof, I hope I think of something before I get there.

- if she gets bored of it, I won't know if it is because it is not finished so I need to add details, or it's because she's too young for a house now, or she just does not like it and treats it just like any other toy.

In any case, I can't wait to start building it and in the past week I've wondered if I build this house for my daughter or for myself :lol:

PS: if everything goes well I plan to make this tread a build log, don't know if this is the best place for it, if not can a moderator please move it to the appropriate spot? Thanks!

PS2: Critiques and suggestions are more than welcome!

[GirlPiper]

Looks good. Just be flexible with your building, and have fun. She may play and abandon, then come back with her own creations for furniture. And, if you "doll" it up later for display or your own hobby, so much the better. Great place to display your wonderful animals.

[Steve Panner]

Thank you Gloria! Flexible is an understatement, I literally have no plan and barely a clue of what I'm doing :LOL: So yea, I'll be flexible! And I'm afraid I'll have more fun building this than it is appropriate for a man my age

[KathieB]

Hi Steve ... did I miss where you said how old your daughter is?

I saw a dollhouse in a thrift shop yesterday. It was scratch built from half-inch lumber with quarter-inch plywood for the hinged, painted roof and was very heavy. It had windows and doors painted on the outside but none inside. It occurred to me that this would be good for preschool age kids. With unadorned solid walls inside, there would be no pressure to accommodate the structure in their play -- like having to put kitchen items in a kitchen, bathroom items in a bathroom, etc.

As for windows and doors in your house, I'd make them plain openings without the mullions or muntins in the windows shown in your mock-up so little hands can easily reach inside. Especially with a small house, she'll instinctively try to do that. If you check sizes for dollhouse window components, you can make the openings an appropriate size for the addition of windows later.

As for why (or for whom) you're building this -- does it matter?

[havanaholly]

...- there are some things I don't know how to do, like the compound angles for the roof,..

When I had to make a porch for the Laurel because it was never originally built I used paper to figure out the porch roof slope and angles where the front part met the side part and made templates out of cheap posterboard and fiddled with it until it fit, then had DH cut the pieces out in wood for me to put together. Your mockup looks like you have the roof issues figured out.

[Selkie]

I love how and where you have the stairs placed. It gives the realism of the stairs and access to the second floor without having them in the way. It leaves a nice big area for playing and furniture rearranging.

As to thickness of wood, I think you might be surprised how sturdy the Greenleaf 1/8" plywood is once it's all together. It can take quite a beating and it is so much lighter. My kiddos haven't broken anything yet and we've been doing this for a lot of years. Not saying we having broken furniture and windows and doors and such though. The tiny trim pieces and railings and so on are very fragile. But the houses we have, have endured 5 kiddos worth of play and are the like the Energizer bunny - they are still going.

[havanaholly]

Steve, you have enough posts to start a blog in the blog section.

[KariW]

When I built my son his hogwarts castle, I glued it onto a drawer and added wheels. I believe it was meant for shoes. It's perfect, because we have wood floors and he can wheel it to where ever he wants to play with it. He is an only child and I did happen to notice that when I had moved it into his bedroom he stopped playing with it. I wheeled it back into the living room , where we are most of the time, and he plays with it daily now. The drawer in the base turns out to be a great storage spot for people and props for play. I'm thinking if you attach it to the base now, the porch and dog house will already have a home when that day comes.

[Sable]

I think 3/8" cabinet grade birch plywood from Lowes or HD will work nicely. I use 1/4" but mine are for display, not for play.

[GirlPiper]

1/4" is what I used for my kids' barn & house and it stood up to a LOT of small boy/girl playing. I hinged the roof for access. Not too heavy to move around, but really sturdy.

[Steve Panner]

Thank you all for you great advice!

Kathie, my daughter is two years old. We use metric system here and the wood I already have is a little under half an inch, closer to 3/8". Still I expect it to be heavy.

As for the windows, Holly suggested the same thing in another thread, so I think I'll take your advice on that and leave them plain.

Holly, the paper template is a great idea and I'll use that for the flooring.

As for the roof, the cardboard mock-up gives me the shape of the pieces, but because of the thickness of the material there will also be an angle inside the joints of the roof. If I cut the pieces to size but leave the edges at 90 degrees there will be gaps at the joints.

The angle between those joints is the one that gave me a headache. But I think I fixed that and some weight issues by buying some thin plywood for the roof and I'll either cover the gaps with some trimming or shape the angle by hand until it joins together seamlessly.

As for the blog, thanks for the suggestion but I have my own blog and I don't know if I can update them both on a regular basis. I'll keep adding to this thread if that's ok or I'll just post some picture of the progress in my gallery.

Selkie The location of the staircase was one of the main reasons I started from scratch making my own plans. Since my daughter is small she can only reach the front of the house, so I placed the stairs in the back to give more room for her to play. In the meantime I changed the stairs to an "L" shape so I can have a window there that later can be tuned into the main entrance to the house.

Since I will use stairs that are a bit out of proportion (they are higher than they are wide, I saw them on brae's blog and they looked great) the new shape will only take a bit of room on the ceiling in the living room. Not perfect but it solves two problems: the front door and the fact that It bothered me more than it should that a "person" going up the stirs will bump their head on the angled ceiling. Now they land in the middle of the hallway in the attic. I think I'm getting a little crazy, but it's good

Kari, the drawer with wheels is a fantastic idea. It gives space to store accessories, it allows my daughter to turn it or to move it around the room. My daughter does the same thing: she only plays in the living room, never uses her room.

Sable, that's what I ended up using, 3/8" plywood and chipboard. I would've made it all of ply but it is not available here, most stores only carry melamine and MDF. And that only in 3/4" thickness. The only piece of plywood I had from an old dresser I used for the two walls that had doors, since chipboard would break fast in the thin area in front of the doors. The chipboard was also from some shelves and I used it because it does not have melamine finishing so I can glue wallpaper to it.

Gloria 1/4" or 5/16" would've been my first choice but I never saw them for sale here, not ply, mdf or melamine. So I used what I had at hand and the best part is that it did not cost me a thing until now.

Again thank you all for your suggestions!

I've started building it out of wood this weekend. I cut all the walls, made some mistakes, but wood is nice and forgiving so they are fixable and I did not ruined anything. I only have wood for a single wall so if I mess up now I only get one chance to fix it.

I glued the main floor and after dry fitting the rest of the parts I know they go well together so I can stop assembly now and finish the walls of the living and kitchen. Not having the attic floor on gives me better access, as you can imagine.

I think I cut too many windows, especially in the kitchen, but only realized that when I assembled it. On the bright side it gives my daughter more play options but on the downside there will be no place for kitchen cabinets (I wanted to place them on the back wall, so the room won't seem too narrow).

Sorry for the belated long reply but I had a side project this weekend and only had a few minutes on the computer.

[KathieB]

Steve, it's looking very good. Not to worry about the windows in the kitchen. She may stable a horse in there, and it will appreciate the fresh air. In any event, she's unlikely to bemoan the lack of kitchen cabinets for quite some time.

I made a "suitcase" house" for my granddaughter, who was about 5 at the time, that had a living room, dining room, bedroom, and kitchen. Her reaction was, "Where's the bathroom?" I sent her the bathroom fixtures, but I have no idea how she incorporated them into the house!

[havanaholly]

Steve, once you have one of your roof pieces in place you can drop a plumb line from the tip of the uppermost corner to the surface the house rests on and draw a line along the end of the roof toget half of the roof angle. If your table saw blade will tilt, simply tilt it to match the line to cut that angle. If your roof will be pitched the same on both sides you can cut the joining edge of the other roop piece to match and your roof should join at the apex.

[Steve Panner]

Kathie, LOL at the horse in he kitchen! The suitcase house looks great! I'll copy some of the furniture from it, if you don't mind, they look cute and sturdy enough to play with.

Holly, I kinda understand what you are explaining and my saw tilts so I can cut the angles if I measure them correctly. I only get one shot to measure them right, since I only have enough material to get the job done, no room for errors. I'll see what can be done when I get there.

It's a little hard for me to fully understand technical terms, also to explain the things I don't know how to do, since, as you might have noticed, English is not my native language.

As for the progress I've made in the last days:

- bought a pack of origami paper, 5 different patterns and colors in that pack, some I like... some not so much, but it was the only pack that had different colors, the others were either all green or all yellow and such. It was quite expensive, at least for us here, at $10 a pack of 50 sheets (10 of each pattern), 8 inch squares.

- bought a pack of stirring sticks for the floors

- started filing and sanding the windows to get them square and equal, since I cut them freehand with a jig saw.

- found a trim for the ceiling corners, it's a bit large, around 3/4 inch tall, but for a child it will work. Now I have to make a jig to cut 45 degrees for the corners by hand since the miter saw is too rough for this delicate wood.

I still think I should build a micro table saw, I have most of the parts ready, but there always seems to be something more important to do at the time.

[havanaholly]

Steve, there's no telling how Google will translate this. If you have a cheap/ free source for heavy cardboard, glue some together to get the thickness of your roof material and experiment getting the apex angle with those first.

[Steve Panner]

That's a great idea Holly! I have some dense styrofoam of the same thickness as the wood, I can use that to get the angles. Thanks, I would not have thought of that!

[Soapz]

Steve, you are aware that we won, right? We 'made' you built a house..... hahahaha

Your house looks awesome. And yes, a mini table saw would be the dream tool.... I've been chasing affordable ones on ebay forever. As you are in Europe there is something called an Unimat - they are from Austria: I don't think they have a table saw - but they do have everything else: http://www.thecooltool.com/en/ - just in case you're going to build more....

[Selkie]

... As you are in Europe there is something called an Unimat - they are from Austria: I don't think they have a table saw - but they do have everything else: http://www.thecooltool.com/en/ - just in case you're going to build more....

Aw, Chris, did you ha-a-a-a-ve to post that link? I mean, really, I have enough tools for half the universe already but now, .... yikes, I wa-a-a-ant that one too!!! O-o-o-o boy, practice restraint, Selkie, restraint.

[havanaholly]

...just in case you're going to build more....

Oh, Chris, of course he'll have to build more; another one for when his daughter is older (and in case there are more daughters) and maybe his wife will decide she wants a big girl dollhouse, and next thing you know he'll be building them just to solve puzzles like the roof angles.

[Steve Panner]

All right guys you got me! I got the bug! :lol: I really enjoy building this house! And I can't wait to think of good reasons to build more.

LOL Holly, the next one might be a Christmas gift for Eveline's cousin, they are of the same age and we buy them identical toys so they won't be jealous. I think my wife would agree it is a good gift instead of buying another toy.

It's not like I could go on and build whatever house I dream of, I need a good reason that can justify the time I spend on this hobby in front of my wife and my family. And in front of friends I chose to hide this hobby completely.

You have to understand the society I live in frowns upon hobbies. People are obsessed with money, I don't know it is because of our poor past or it's the same thing in all the modern world, but everything we do is about money. We have more things at 30 than our parents gathered their whole live, yet we keep working like madmen 10-12 hours a day. If we get something new, the question everybody asks is not "what can it do?" but "what did you pay for it?". If you paid a lot then it must be good. If you paid little then people pity you and act like you have a disease or something. The same thing for hobbies, if you make something they all ask what can you sell it for, if you don't plan to sell it or it has no value and you only do it for your own pleasure they look at you like you are mad. And laugh behind your back. I'd be fine with that but it puts pressure on your family, so I have to keep appearances.

That's why I sell the pets I make, it is an extra income so it keeps everyone happy, I can make minis and my wife accepts it because of the money. Outside the family I keep the hobby hidden, most likely people would laugh at us that I have a college degree and yet I make toys. Same thing for my full size woodworking hobby, I justify it by the savings we make if we don't have to buy something, yet the tools and materials I use cost way more than the products I make, but it keeps appearances so everybody is happy. I really hate this money obsessed world, but it's better than what we had before so I have to accept it.

Anyway, back to the subject, you can skip that part in italics, it's just the hippie in me ranting.

Chis, Unimat is not available for sale here. I could order them online, but I usually want to test them before I buy. They are also quite expensive. I am a Proxxon fan myself. Or used to be... When I was building ships I had a scroll saw from them that was a great tool, I had to sell it when I gave that hobby up. Now I bought a new one, identical to the first, and it feels lighter and wobbly. Also I bought a small wood lathe from them (this one) and the collets are made of plastic if you can believe it. I already ruined the largest one, I have to make them out of brass on a real lathe. And at the same time I bought a $20 rotary tool made in china that has a wonderful steel collet. I guess German tools are not what they used to be.

They have a great selection of saws: HERE but they are kinda noisy and have a lot of plastic components. So I guess I'll build the saw myself, I have a great brushless motor that makes literally zero noise, it's the same kind they use in room fans, only faster and with more power. Also have a lot of other components like bearings and arbor and blade. Just the time to put it all together I don't have.

As for the house, last night I added wallpaper to the kitchen and it was... unexpected. I thought it will be easy, I mean just glue some paper on the wall.. right? Well the paper warped and bubbled and... man it was messy! Good thing for the floral design that covers most of the errors and also the client is happy with the result and can't wait to improve it using colored pencils so, overall it is all good. I'll do the living today, if she lets me and then I'll post some pictures before I put the ceiling on.

PS: Thank God for the autosave function of this forum, my computer just reseted out of the blue and I would've lost all I wrote above.

[havanaholly]

Steve, it's sad that your society is not mature enough in its economic development to realize that hobbies and leisure time activities are the reward for not having to spend every waking moment working oneself into an early grave. and that there is such sarisfaction in making things with your own hands that no one else has taken the time to try. In addition to making dollhouses and miniature goodies to go in them, I also enjoy hiding (even with crippling arthritis I do what I can) and riding my road trike and paddling my kayak and working with the local jazz society.

And that's just my comments on your rant, also in ignorable italics.

[KathieB]

As for the house, last night I added wallpaper to the kitchen and it was... unexpected. I thought it will be easy, I mean just glue some paper on the wall.. right? Well the paper warped and bubbled and... man it was messy! Good thing for the floral design that covers most of the errors and also the client is happy with the result and can't wait to improve it using colored pencils so, overall it is all good. I'll do the living today, if she lets me and then I'll post some pictures before I put the ceiling on.

Steve, I couldn't tell from the photo, but did you put a coat of primer on the wood before you pasted the wallpaper? I see the rest of the house is not primed. This is a good step and one you should consider. It makes a good surface for gluing and permits removal of the paper easier when your client decides she's tired of improving it and wants it replaced, and it prevents the natural acids in the wood from leaching through to discolor the paper, which will happen over time. The latter isn't as important in this case, as you're obviously aware that your client will be redecorating soon.

A thin coat of regular house paint will do for priming. Some of us prime with gesso, if that's available to you.

When gluing the paper, you might try applying the glue to the wall and then pressing the dry paper onto it. Use a stiff piece of plastic (like a credit card) or a soft, dry rag to smooth from the center to the edges to remove bubbles and excess glue. A quick wipe with a damp cloth will clean up the edges (corners).

In a society that has undergone such radical changes in a relatively short time, it is understandable that priorities may become skewed to an extreme. Hopefully one day the pendulum will swing back to permit society to appreciate art and craftsmanship on its merits. Meanwhile, keep on as you are. The world is a little better for your contributions.

[Summersethomes]

Hi Steve, I love how your house is coming along and I think you should never give up your hobby of ship building if people dont like it that's their problem whe are they gonna do run you out of town? how silly of them to put their issues on you. go back to doing what makes you happy and continue with your dollhouses cause I think you are pretty talented thanks for sharing your photos M.

[Minis On The Edge]

Steve, your house is looking Splendid! What a neat project you have there

[Sable]

Your wallpaper is all lined up and I couldn't see any flaws with it. Great job!