One of my favorite hobbies is to create things for my granddaughter. In the past, I have made Halloween princess costumes, fairy gardens, numerous art projects and a birthday cake which was “requested” to be topped with a mermaid, fairy, ballerina, and a princess. About three years ago, I purchased a dollhouse kit from a thrift store for $35. I thought it would be a simple task to create an heirloom for her, and I would have it done in no time at all. I am happy to report that last Christmas I gave her the completed dollhouse which now is one of her favorite things to play with when she comes to my house; I am delighted that I could give her this heirloom…however, I need to confess that it was more of an “adventure” than a simple task.
The previous owners of the home had initially constructed the structure with a hot glue gun instead of the recommended wood glue, so a little demolition took place first. Next, I installed the rest of the windows and corrected the alignment of the doors. The instructions for creating a faux brick texture for the chimney involved mixing plaster of Paris and using a stencil to plaster a precise 1/16 thickness on the chimney and the pulling the stencil off without smearing the plaster. Completion of the roof included gluing over a thousand wood shingles. Each dowel for the porch needed to be constructed precisely to measurements or the banisters and stairs would not fit together. In the end, other than the initial cost of this project, I purchased only the faux tile floor for the bathroom and used only leftover paint and wallpaper I already had.
Some of the furnishings had been previously assembled, but again, many of them needed to be constructed, then sanded and painted. This project took me a span of a 1 1/2 years to complete and during that time, I researched other dollhouse enthusiasts and brought many wonderful ideas into my granddaughter’s dollhouse.
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