Make your own wooden dollhouse kitchen table

If you've ever tried making a wooden doll house table, you know how hard it can be to get the legs even so that the table doesn't rock.  Here's a quick and easy "trick" you can use... 

* Drill holes for your dowel table legs in each corner (drill clear through the table top)

* Insert the dowels (they need to fit snuggly, you may have to gently tap them in with a hammer)

* Place the table right side up and see if it rocks, if it does, adjust the offending leg(s) until the table rests evenly.

* Turn table upside down and run a thin line of glue around each leg

* When dry, sand table top until smooth

* Now finish your table... by staining or painting.  Here is an example of a table topped with a retro looking finish (scrapbooking paper covered with laminate)

Another trim idea for the no sew dollhouse chair / sofa

If you are making your own dollhouse chair or sofa, here is another idea for trim.  It worked well... you can decide if you like the look or not!  This particular set reminds me of a candy cane!  (For instructions on making these, see our earlier posts.)

Make your own homemade dollhouse fireplace

A fire place makes your dolls house look cozy and is very easy to make.  Find a photo of a fireplace that you like (do an image search for one, or else take your own picture of one).  Make sure the photo is straight on.  If it is taken at an angle it won't work.  Print the photo so that it fills a space approximately 3 1/8" high by 3 7/8" wide.  Cut a thin piece of wood or craft foam the same dimensions.  Cut a mantel from another thin piece of wood.  Glue the mantel to the top of the fireplace.  Paint the entire thing a coordinating color (brown if it's a wood fireplace, grey if it's a stone one, etc.)  When dry, glue on the fireplace picture.  Now, you are done, or you can coat it with some acrylic spray sealer to make it a little nicer.  You can glue the fire place to the wall, or use velcro to fasten it if you want it to be moveable.  You can also use a thicker piece of wood that will stand on it's own to make a completely free-standing fireplace that can be moved around on a whim.    This isn't a great picture, but here's a sample of one fastened to the wall:

And here's a couple pictures of a free-standing wooden dollhouse fireplace:

And here's one of a stone doll house fireplace:

Another idea for the no-sew dollhouse chair / sofa legs

There's no reason a chair can't have 6 legs, is there?!  While not realistic looking, it does look unique and fun... just take a string of beads, clip off a few, and hot glue them to the bottom of our no sew sofa or chairs.  

Make your own wooden dollhouse bunkbed

Making your own wooden doll house bunk bed takes a minimum of 4 pieces of wood, but you can also add two dowels to the top bunk to give it rails.  I chose to use a nail gun to assemble the bed, but you can also use glue.    Follow instructions from the earlier dollhouse bed post on how to wrap the "mattresses".  Here is a picture that is better than any explanation!

Make your own miniature dollhouse piano!

Making your own wooden doll house piano sounds complicated, but I figured out an easy way to make one!  You need:
* 1 block of wood 4.5" x 3.25" x .75"
* 1 triangular piece of wood (found in the trim department of hardware stores) 4.5" long
* 1 thin flat wood piece 4.5" x 1.25" x .25"
* 2 dowels (whatever diameter you want) 2" long
* one printed piano keyboard roughly 4" long (you can find a good one at Jim's Dollhouse Pages)
Glue these wooden pieces together as shown in the picture, paint, and enjoy!  Jim's Dollhouse Pages also has some tiny sheet music you can print.

For a piano bench, take a 1" x 2.5" of thin wood and add two more pieces of wood for the legs, bringing the total bench height to approximately 1.5"


I do have an earlier post of an even simpler piano - it takes two pieces of wood.  I think this one is way nicer though!

Making your own homemade dollhouse kitchen sink and cupboard

To make your own wooden doll house sink and cupboard is not hard if you can operate a scroll saw... if you can't, I think you could glue small pieces of wood around to form a sink, anyway, here are instructions on how to make this one!

You need:

* a chunk of wood 3.5" x 1.5" x 2" (this is the base)

* a piece of wood 3.5" x 1.5" x .5" (cut a .5" x 1.125" rectangle out of one end of this - it will be the sink)

* 2 thin pieces of wood 1.625" x 2.25" (these are the cupboard doors)

* 1 screw hook

* 2 earring posts

* beads for cupboard handles (or you can paint them on)

Assemble wood pieces as shown by gluing...

paint...

screw in the "faucet"

glue on the faucet handles and door handles...

You're done!

For another example of this miniature kitchen sink and cupboard, see this picture in a later post.  It uses little snippets of thin dowels to create faucet handles and cupboard / drawer handles.  (Glue them on and paint over them.)

Make your own doll house stove / oven

Here is a basic idea for making your own dollhouse wooden stove and oven. You would not have to put the "hood" over the stove:

You need:

* a chunk of wood 1.5" x 1.5" x 2.5" (drill 4 small holes in the top - big enough that half a snap will fit in them)

* thin pieces of wood to make your back and "hood".

Glue together...

paint...

glue on half of a snap for stove burners (you could paint these on instead)...

glue beads on for stove "dials" (you could paint these on instead too)...

glue or paint on an oven door handle...

You're done! Here are some before and after pictures:

You can also use tiny rings for the stove burners... see this picture in a later post for an example.

Make your own homemade dollhouse refrigerator / freezer combo

With 3 wood scraps you can easily make a doll house refrigerator and freezer combination. You need:

* one wood chunk measuring approximately 1.5" x 2.125" x 5.5"

* one thin piece of wood measuring 2.125" x 3.375"

* one thin piece of wood measuring 2.125" x 1.75"

Sand corners...

Glue on doors...

paint...

add a refrigerator handle (a metal clip from an old pen works well)...

And you're done!

This fridge/freezer can be set on either end, depending if you want a top or bottom freezer model!

Here is a before and after picture of one:

For another idea on miniature fridge / freezer handles see our later post.

How to make some basic homemade wooden dollhouse bathroom furniture

Here is a "before" picture of a wooden doll house toilet, bath tub, and sink. I'm still experimenting, but these are solid and playable. I plan on painting them white. The toilet lid will hinge with a small bit of fabric glued on. You can buy various sized dowels in the craft section of stores, or from a hardware store. I made this picture a little larger than normal so you can see the pieces and how they're put together.

As a side note, the wallpaper is scrapbooking paper and the floor is too - it's covered with clear plastic laminate. It is from Joann Fabric and Craft Stores and looks really nice installed.

Here is an after picture of the bathroom... First I painted every thing white. The sink part I painted a little bit of an off white to make it stand out more. The toilet flush handle I just painted on with a bit of grey paint. Same with the bathroom sink faucet and handles (I couldn't find anything on hand tiny enough to look realistic, but will keep looking!). The bathtub faucet is a metal hook and the bath tub's hot / cold water handles are earring posts. The pictures on the walls are attached with Velcro so they can be switched around. The pictures are those small ones found on the backs of calendars. Then I glued them on foam paper. The mirror above the sink is a small 1 inch mirror from the craft section, and I glued it to the middle of a piece of foam paper, and then cut small pieces to form a border around it. The toilet I ended up making hinge with a small piece of white duct tape.

Here is a picture of a later homemade wooden dollhouse toilet that is a little simpler to make...  This lid does not hinge like the other one.  

Making your own dollhouse furniture? Here's some measurements for you!

If you are making your own doll house furniture, and don't want to go around measuring everything in your house, here is a chart of approximate measurements for main furniture items in a house! The numbers are in the 1 foot = 1 inch scale. (For example, a typical kitchen table measures 2.5 feet, so that would be 2.5 inches in the dollhouse scale.)

More notes on a no-sew doll house couch, sofa, or arm chair

The general instructions to create your own dollhouse front room, living room, parlour, or den furniture are in our earlier post.  But here are some more notes!  

I found a cheap, realistic looking product from which to make doll house furniture legs... earring posts!  You can buy them in bags in the jewelry section of craft stores.  Use very small dots of hot glue to secure them to the bottom of your furniture piece.  Here is a close-up picture...

Here are three ways you can trim our no-sew doll house arm chairs, sofas, etc.

1.)  Thin decorative rope works much better than the thick rope used in the earlier post...

2.) A plain, slick yarn-like trim:

3.) Make your own trim by cutting very thin strips of coordinating or matching fabric.  I recommend using a sewing glue for this type, not hot glue.  

Another thing you can do to give your doll house chair, couch, or sofa a different look is glue trim around the base of it.  Sometimes the raw edge of certain fabrics works great - that's what this picture is of - otherwise, experiment with different kinds of trimming and ruffles.

Make your own dollhouse couch / sofa!

Following the same steps as the post on how to make your own no-sew dollhouse chair, you can easily make a couch or sofa. (For a sofa the block of wood should be approximately .75" x 1.75" x 4.5") Note that this furniture set I made uses smaller decorative rope, and I also added cushions... if you can sew, it would be easier to make your own small cushions that way, but I experimented with fabric glue, and it worked well.

Make your own handmade no-sew dollhouse chair or sofa!

(To view all the doll house armchair and couch posts together, use the "no-sew doll house couch / sofa" label at the top left.)

If you've ever admired real dollhouse front room furniture, but know it is out of your price range and looks way to complicated for you to ever even think of sewing it... then this post is for you! It is a super easy, homemade no-sew way of making your own realistic looking dollhouse family room / front room / parlor furniture.

You'll need: a block of wood 1.75 inches square, fabric, coordinating decorative rope, fabric stiffener that has adhesive on both sides, 4 same sized beads, and a glue gun. Here is a picture of the fabric stiffener stuff I used and it worked well:

If you're not picky, a square block of wood will work just fine, but if you are picky, you can angle one side slightly and round one corner... then when you assemble the chair the back will angle back slightly instead of straight up and down, and the chair seat will look more like it is a cushion. Here's a picture of a sample side view:

Next, take a piece of paper or card stock, fold it in half length wise. Center your block on the fold on the bottom edge. Imagine what you want the side of your chair to look like and sketch it. If you don't want to sketch your own, you can print this template and use it to create the chair back you see in this post (*note: when printed, the grey area of this template should measure 3.56 inches high and 5.107 inches wide. You might have to copy and paste it into a word processing program or photo editing program to force it to be that size.)

If you chose to draw your own shape, fold the paper in half and cut:

Now wrap your template around your wood block to test and make sure it is how you want it to look. It is okay that the template doesn't come completely to the front edges of the block - this makes just enough room to nest your rope trim in:

Using your template as a guide, measure enough fabric to cover your template twice, and enough fabric stabilizer to cover it once:

Follow the manufacturer's directions to fuse the fabric to both sides of your fabric stabilizer.

Using the template, cut out your shape...

Now, cut a piece of fabric just big enough to fully cover the wood block. Smear the block with a thin layer of glue and "wrap" it just like you would a package!

Position your wrapped block at the bottom and in the center of your fabric chair arms and back. Holding firmly, start hot gluing the two pieces together:

Now take your decorative roping/edging and beginning at the bottom on one side, hot glue the edging on a little at a time. *note, use very small amounts of glue here or it will show and not look as nice:

Now turn the chair over and put 4 blobs of hot glue in each corner and push a bead into each:

You're done! You can add a cushion for height or just to look nice if you'd like. Here are some finished picture of this chair:

For additonal ideas and notes and more pictures of doll house couches and arm chairs, visit this post.

Better yet, to view all the posts together, use the "no-sew doll house couch / sofa" label on the top left.

We also occasionally sell cheap already made furniture... for more information and what's currently available, visit this furniture page of our dollhouse decorating website!

Make your own wooden dollhouse bed!

First, decide on the size of your bed... for a 1 foot = 1 inch scale you'll want the bed mattress part to measure approximately 3" by 6".  Cut a 3/4" deep block of wood to these dimensions.  Then, out of thinner wood, cut your desired headboard / foot board shape.  Nail (or glue, but nailing is more sturdy) the bed together, leaving a small space under the bed to make it look more realistic.  

 

Next, paint or stain the headboard and foot board.

Now, choose the fabric for your bed mattress as well as the bed-covers.   Here, you have several options.  If you will have children playing with your house, I highly recommend sewing or gluing the bed-covers onto the bottom middle of the fabric for your mattress.  If you will not have children playing with it, then just leave the bed covers loose.  Spread the wooden bed mattress with a thin layer of tacky glue and "wrap" it with your mattress fabric.  

  

If you already attached the bed-covers, you're done!  If not, wait for the glue to dry and make your bed!  Here are some examples of beds with comments:

This pink dollhouse child's bed uses fleece for its bedspread.  Fleece works great because it does not ravel.  It is trimmed with a scrap of lace.  The headboard and foot board was embellished with small flowers, cut out of a string of "ribbon flowers".  

This blue bed shows you a very quick and easy cover - just a scrap of cloth cut out and fray-checked around the edges.

Now, this bedspread is my favorite, because it looks the most "real" with all the tucks!  It is part of the sleeve of an old child's dress.  It was already hemmed like that...  I just cut it and fray-checked the cut edges.  I also cut the tie off the back of the dress and stuffed part of it and sewed up one end and a stitch through the middle to make a double pillow for the bed.  Even if you're a non-seamstress (like me!) you should be able to run a short straight stitch in two places or find someone who can do it for you.  You also might be able to make pillows using fabric glue, but I haven't tried it, so not sure about that one... let me know if you try it, how it goes!