Transformed dollhouse and the birthday girl.

I have a hard time walking away from a vintage dollhouse. And I probably should have walked away from this one. But I loved its size and it had the sweetest working elevator! So I bought it for around $35 and it sat in the garage until a certain almost-three-year-old spotted it. I promised that I would clean it up. And I got it ready just in time for her birthday. I’m sharing it because I know when I was working on mine, I was constantly looking for inspiration!

Several months later, this dollhouse has already been loved fairly hard so she likely has some updates in her future. Maybe Stella and I will do the next makeover together. In the meantime, I still keep my eyes open for all vintage dollhouse furniture at estate sales or on Facebook marketplace.

In situ at the estate sale. Filled with possibilities.

Here she is at the estate sale. Pretty charming, but she’s deceiving. There were chunks missing from the particle board. I ended up cutting a new piece for the roof because the original was warped. And I had to put the roof tiles on individually.

For me, step one is always rip out the old wallpaper and flooring. Then try to fix the structure. This is when I realized that this house was just made of cheap particle board and probably should have passed (it it so heavy!). But I was too far in it. For pieces, with giant missing chunks, I repaired it as best I could using Bondo. The prep work for Bondo is a pain, so it’s best so identify all the spots that you need to repair and do them all at once.

Then, I like to paint everything white and start figuring out the room arrangement and the decoration.

The Dollhouse Makeover Chronicles