Renovating my old dollhouse

This is not my dollhouse, but mine was exactly like this!

So I shipped my old dollhouse to Canada few years back. Took it apart, removed some old the previous renovation wallpapers (that I did as a teenager in the 80's).

It has stayed in the shipping package since then. Now that my niece is coming for a visit in few weeks time, I had to get the dollhouse back together.


So I sanded all the pieces and removed any leftover glue or wallpaper and then painted the walls. One of the upstairs room got a copper metallic paint (I used Fusion Mineral Paint as my paint). The other upstairs room is Sterling (light gray)
Downstairs backwall is Inglenook.



Two of the dividing walls got wallpaper (just some scrapbooking paper) on one side. I left one of the dividing walls out, got more of an open plan downstairs. 

I also added one window in the small downstairs room. That was designed as a washroom, but since I no longer have any bathroom pieces (and when I was a kid, my dolls didn't really go to the bathroom...) I figured I'll turn it into a small bedroom.



The floor was made from coffee stir sticks (thinner and narrower than popsicle sticks), which were really easy to cut to size with craft scissors (I used Tim Holtz scissors). I also used the coffee stir sticks as baseboards.

The staircase railing broke on transport, so I removed the piece that had the remnants of the spindles and used a piece of paint stir stick as the railing. It's probably not to 'code' (fairly low), but makes it easier to move the dolls up the stairs ;-)

Finally furnished! Might have to paint the balcony railing....

furniture upcycling projects

So, this spring I finally decided to tackle some of the furniture painting and upcycling projects I have postponed.

KITCHEN ISLAND

I picked up this dresser few years back in our neighbourhood. It was in pretty bad shape, needed some frame work and the top was totally gone.




So I took both sides off, replaced them with new wood, sanded the whole thing, strengthened the structure and painted it all. 


The interior was bright red and I wanted to go white, so it took a good primer and several coats of white paint, but I finally got it there. The doors and the sides have been painted with Fusion Mineral Paint. 

It is still missing a top, as I need to add some bookshelves to the ends to make it double the size. Then it will serve as my kitchen island.

GUEST BEDROOM NIGHT TABLE

The next project was a small nightstand. The surface of it was in pretty bad condition, so I decided to paint it and wanted to try some decoupaging on this piece. The sides had perfect rectangular shapes, that I could fill with paper. Looking it now, I think I should have painted the piece lighter, as the contrast between the decoupage paper and the piece is a bit hard, but this is what it is now.

ENTRYWAY STORAGE BENCH

The third project was an entryway storage bench. We keep our grocery bags in this unit, and it can also be used as a bench (a bit high, but works for taller people).

ENTRYWAY SIDE TABLE FROM A SHELF

Then I made a small entryway side table out of an old white floating shelf. It needed extra support as if you would lean on it, it would have fallen off the wall, so I bought some prefab legs from the hardware store and painted them the same colour as the shelf.

ENTRYWAY SIDE TABLE

I also painted another side table at our entryway (you think one side table would be enough, but we actually have 3 tables and the storage bench in our entryway!!!)

IKEA CHAIR

Then I wanted to test Indian Inlay Stencil. I knew it is a bit finicky, but I didn't want to try this stencil on a major piece of furniture without practising with it first. This was the first piece of stencilling, where I did more than just the top. I found it was tricky to keep the stencil on its place, specially on the narrow legs. So I would next time use a stencil adhesive to keep it down better. I guess I should also work with my patience. I'm always in a rush to get the item ready, so I'm really having hard time waiting for the previous stencilling to dry before tackling the next section.

IKEA chair painted with Fusion Mineral Paint and Indian Inlay Stencil

CRAFT ROOM TABLE TOP

And then I did something for my craft room also. I did an new tabletop out of an old desk top. I painted it with Fusion Mineral Paint and then stencilled a lace pattern on top of it.