How to Assemble and Paint a Wood Dollhouse

Always wanted your very own dollhouse? Or how about a dollhouse for your grandchild? Don't pay the exorbitant fees they charge you at the toy store!

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 Steps

    1
    Design your dollhouse. Figure out how many rooms you want and how many stories. Once you have your plan you can begin building.
    2
    Gather supplies. For a good dollhouse you will need thin plywood or particle board, tack nails and paints. Glue helps too. Although balsa wood might seem like a good thing to use it is far too thin and flimsy for little children to play with. They will quickly turn the dollhouse into toothpicks!
    3
    Cut your wood into shape in accordance with your plan. If it's your first time doing this, cut a two foot by two foot square for your back wall and then five two foot by one foot rectangles and finally two one foot by one foot pieces of your ply wood. Build a half box by nailing boards around the edges of the square and down the middle. Use the other two boards to make the whole thing look like a window.
    4
    Once you know how your pieces are going together either nail everything together or glue it together. You could do both because the glue keep nails from getting loose and hurting little hands. Just be careful, the thin wood you'll be using splits easily when you drive nails through it.
    5
    Get a Dremel and start cutting doors and windows into the house. Switch bits in order to sand the edges smooth in a timely fashion.
    6
    Add some finishing touches. This includes framing out the windows and adding door frames and a roof if you like. You can find small pieces of wood that are good for this at hobby shops and home improvement warehouses.
    7
    Paint the dollhouse! (It is definitely important to get your grandchildren's say on this one!) Try to hit each room with a different color. A trick is get a fancy embossed roll of paper towels or toilet paper and then apply a light coat of paint over a dried coat of paint in a different color, then roll your paper over it gently to pull the paint off at the high points in the paper. It will give it a fancy wall paper look! It may take some practice to get it right though, so keep trying.
    8
    Add furniture. This deserves an article all its own, but once furniture is in place you are all ready to present your beautiful dollhouse!

 Tips

    Many hardware stores will give you paint samples for free. Ask about these since they come in the perfect size for painting dollhouse rooms!
    Don't feel set back if you don't get it at first. Everything takes practice. Just keep trying and working on your dollhouse until you get it how you want it!

 Warnings

    Tools can be dangerous so always be careful when using them!