Building a Dollhouse: Beginning Assembling

Assembling a dollhouse from a kit is a wonderful “life” lesson in patience and order.  I often like to make my own order and skip ahead to something that looks creative or interesting.  However, I can not stress enough that the dollhouse has to be built in order; step-by-step.

To begin with I first gathered the materials I would need and cataloged and labeled all of them then I stained 4 large bags of shingles and painted the outside pieces of the dollhouse.  After the initial prep work I needed a little break and some creative time.  So I took a few days to make a little kitchen table and chairs from recycled materials for the dollhouse.  That is the great thing about building a dollhouse is that there is no rush.  If you need a few days to regroup or explore other creative projects you can take a break and come back to it later.  However, because it is such a large project you need a dedicated space in your home for building the dollhouse, otherwise, parts will get lost or misplaced.

The next steps in building the dollhouse once the parts are cataloged, outside has been painted, and the shingles are stained is:

1. Assembling the front steps according the directions and diagram provided.

2. Assembling the chimney.  I chose to paint the chimney red to match my color scheme.  I encourage you to really make the dollhouse your own by painting it whatever colors excite you and compliment the dollhouse’s architectural style.

3. Assembling the bay wall sets.  The Bay Wall Sets were very difficult for me.  Review the instructions and diagrams very carefully when putting together the bay wall sets.  The first time I put them together incorrectly and spent quite sometime chipping and sanding away the glue.

4. Assemble the house body first by creating and gluing the foundation.

5. Identify the top floor and the gable floor create a template for the porch floor and paint both the porch floor and the ceiling.

Once the above steps are finished the walls can start to be added.  The hardest part currently is that there is so much prep work it doesn’t look like a dollhouse, yet.  I am excited to put up the walls and really see the dollhouse start to come to life.