Last year while walking through my parents garage I looked up and spotted my old doll house.  My dad had originally built it for his mom and when she passed away it was given back to him.  I remember playing with it as a child and I loved it.  I tried to find a picture of me and it but I didn’t have any luck… I’ll keep looking.


My dad saw me looking up and asked what I was looking at and I said “My old doll house… I wonder if it can be fixed up for Olivia.”  Guess that’s all I needed to say, because the next time I went over, it had been taken down from its perch in storage.  It was in pretty bad disrepair having been up in their garage attic for the last 19 years.   After taking it apart he decided he would go ahead and just replicate it.  He got the wood and got everything cut out, but it was pretty slow going, as he was working 80+ hour weeks at his day job.  That continued on for months.  Finally this summer, things slowed down enough and he was back to working more reasonable hours, so he got back on track and really got to work on the doll house.  I’m happy to report he brought it over to my daughter last Sunday and it was a big hit!  I got out my oldest daughters old doll house furniture (which I had saved with this in mind) and we got to furnishing and decorating.
{Dad and Olivia the night he brought it to her}
 
We decided not to add in the stairs – as a child I remember they tended to get in the way, but the notches are there should we decide to do so.
 

The first thing I made for it was curtains. 
Stop by tomorrow to learn a super easy way to create curtain rods and finials as well as how to hang them!

My dad had purchased windows that open and shut, along with these really nice doors.  But the doors didn’t come with door knobs, so I grabbed a couple of round wood beads from the Creativity for Kids Wood Kit my kids have and hot glued those on to use as knobs.  They match perfectly and also do the job nicely!

And did you notice the floors of the doll house?  They look like wood floors and it is the simplest little trick.  My dad used a ruler and pencil and just drew lines down the length of the floor prior to staining!

 {Look at those wood floors!  They match my real ones!}

I also used mod-podge to add some wall decor to each of the rooms, some created by me, others downloaded from the web:

 And check out that roof!  My father had to painstakingly apply each one of those little shingles.  But boy, it was worth it, huh? 

 
If you noticed that I didn’t show any front exterior shots of the house, that is because it isn’t quite finished.  We still need to add on the balcony banister.  My dad also painted the house white so I am contemplating what I can do to dress it up a bit.

Have you posted about a doll house?  I would love to see, share your link in the comments!