The doll house that I wish was my house

I have been BUSY lately.  One of the things I've been working on was to change this . . . 

 . . . into this.

Brandon and I originally wanted to make the girls a doll house from scratch.  Brandon had a lot of fun sketching out designs and figuring out the scale of everything.  But then we decided that it would be too much work for this year.  So we put the idea on the back burner.

Then one day I was playing with the girls in the toy room and we started pretending that the toy shelf shelves were different rooms for a doll house.  We built some furniture from mega blocks and random things we found in the room.  The girls had so much fun playing with the makeshift doll house that I decided Brandon and I could easily make one for them.

I figured they would like a doll house because they kept using the little play kitchen's oven and microwave as bedrooms.

First we had to put a back on the shelves.  The backing board and a two by four board were the only things we bought.  Everything else we already had.

We worked on the doll house after the kids went to bed each night.

Brandon cut the wood and assembled the furniture.

I worked on sewing some blankets and painting everything.

We celebrated Christmas on Saturday so we wouldn't have to bring a lot of presents with us to Utah.  On "Christmas Eve" we stayed up until after 2:00 am to finish the doll house (and wrap presents).  It was worth it though.  I'd been looking forward to working on the doll house all day.

This is the living room.  The "carpet" is some fabric I've had forever, but I've never known what to use it for. I cut it to fit and then glued it with my favorite glue, E6000 glue.  That stuff's not going anywhere. Brandon painted the clock, the picture, and the TV screen. I painted the fish on the TV.  I made the chair over 6 years ago as a final project for an interior design class.  I'm not too happy with the color of the room (I was trying to do a shade lighter than one of the colors in the rug, but it turned out too dark) or with the way the windows look.  I'm planning to make some curtains which should fix both problems.

I was so impressed by this family picture that Brandon painted.  He keeps surprising me with hidden talents.

This is one of the kids' rooms.  I love the bunk bed.  The wall is decorated with scrap book paper.  The rug is made from pipe cleaners that I braided and then sewed together.

This is the master bedroom.  The bed was supposed to fit in the room, but for some reason it doesn't.  I put pretty buttons on the wall as decorations.

I love how this scrapbook paper looks like fancy wallpaper.  I wanted to do something equally fancy for the floor, but I couldn't think of anything.  After I "finished" the house I remembered that I have some white fleece that would look great as carpet.  So I'll have to add that someday.

Another kids' room.  This room has scrapbook paper for the floor.

I don't know what I love the most about this room.  I love the cute little toilet that Brandon cut out with his hacksaw.  I love the mirror from an old compact case.  I love the tub and cabinets that I painted. And I love the "linoleum" that is really scrapbook paper.

This dining room is so perfect.  I want this room for real.  Maybe because it's made out of things from my real kitchen and dining room.  The floor is contact paper from my last apartment.  The chairs are spray painted with the same can that I used to make the color accents in my kitchen.  The table is just painted with toll paint, but I love it so much I want to get a black table when we inevitably upgrade.  I'm also in love with the shape of the table and chairs.  There's something very modern about them.  

Brandon screwed all the furniture - except the couch and beds - to the floor.  That way they wont get broken or lost.  Later, Charlotte and Lydia were moving chairs around our real kitchen and dining room Brandon looked at me and asked, "can I screw our real furniture to the floor?"

This kitchen is so cute I almost can't stand it.  I assumed that Brandon would want to paint the cupboards and everything.  But he put me in charge.  I was intimidated at first, but I tried my best, and did really well if I do say so myself.  It's amazing to me how just a few lines can suggest what the object is supposed to be.  Everything is painted except the burners on the stove.  I used buttons for those.  Brandon meticulously painted the white squares onto the black floor.

Here's a closer view of the kitchen because it's so dang cute!

The girls LOVED the doll house.  They started playing with it right away.

I had such a good time doing this project with Brandon.  It's been a long time since we were able to put our heads together on a project like this.  I'm glad to see we haven't lost our touch.