It has always been my dream to have a beautiful victorian dollhouse, and I am going to share my dream dollhouse makeover. As a kid, I would have loved one. However, I had to use old cardboard cereal boxes and my imagination to create my dollhouses. I up-cycled a second-hand dollhouse for my niece for Christmas. My inner child had such fun, giving this old dollhouse a makeover. In this post, I will share the before and after of the dollhouse makeover. I also have a YouTube video where you can watch the full makeover. I will pop the video below.
I purchased this dollhouse from the buy and sell site Adverts.ie, a local lady was having a clear-out before Christmas. I jumped at the chance to get this, and I got it for a steal. There is no brand name on the dollhouse, as I had some people asking for details for the dollhouse. There was no stickers or branding on the back or inside of the house, and I am not sure how old it is.
I began my dollhouse makeover with a new paint job. I painted the exterior of the dollhouse in Colourtrend “Unveiled” in a satin finish. I made sure to give the dollhouse a good prep and clean before painting. I cleaned down the piece with degreaser and lightly sanded. I then applied one coat of Colourtrend Prime two. Once this was dry, I applied two coats of “Unveiled”. I was able to remove the balcony from the front, and this made it easier to paint. I used a small art brush to cut into the window frames.
For the interior, I decided to give the dollhouse some fancy flooring. I purchased dollhouse flooring from this seller on Amazon. I went with a popular herringbone design. I was going to use lollypop sticks to create a herringbone floor, but it was going to take me too long. The dollhouse flooring sheets were easy to lay down. I was able to remove the centre walls from the house and lay the flooring. I used some wood glue to stick the flooring sheets to the original floor.
Here is a link to the herringbone floor.
Here is a link to the tiled bathroom floor.
I added some panelling details to the living room. I used my rotary cutter to cut lollipops to size. I then glued them to the wall, and evenly spaced the vertical panels. I then painted the panelling in the same shade as the exterior.
In the downstairs dining room, I painted the walls in Colourtrend “Lowland”. Lowland is a lovely light pink shade, and I love how it blends in with the other tones of the dollhouse.
As my niece is young, I wanted to keep the furniture simple. Dollhouse furniture can be expensive, so I furnished the interior of the dollhouse with Sylvanian Family furniture. I was able to get some of the Sylvanian family furniture second-hand, and I purchased the rest. I remember wanting Sylvanian families so bad as a kid! They were rich kid toys, so I am making up for lost time lol!
I hope you like my dollhouse makeover. I cannot wait for my niece to see this on Christmas Day, and I hope it brings her lots of joy over the years. Please share this post to your Pinterest boards, and don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel if you enjoyed the video at the top of this post. Click here for my furniture makeover!
Thanks for reading,
Chat soon,
Catherine.
