TV Stand Doll House

This was our big present to the girls this Christmas. We didn't give it to them on Christmas since we were at my parent's house. The kids LOVE it. I bought the tv stand for $10 and had most of the paint. Overall, I spent about $100 on this project including the wood, paint, furniture, fabric, yarn, and everything.

I sanded the whole thing, tore off the wood from the back, took off the doors, and took out all of the shelves except where the tv would have gone.

Cork and I cut new wood for the back, then primed and painted it.

And we built a roof. I primed and painted the inside of the roof before installing it.

I primed and painted the rest of the doll house with two coats of both primer and paint. The purple is the color of the twins' beds and the off white is paint that a paint store mixed up for us incorrectly a few years ago, then gave us for free.

I cut over 700 jumbo popsicle sticks in half and glued them onto the roof like shingles, one at a time. I could only do a few rows and then clamped them down or the tops of the sticks would start sticking up. I needed to make sure they laid as flat as possible.

I installed a pull out shelf from another tv stand to use as an extension to the living room. This took more time than I had hoped. I measured the extra wood we needed inside and my dad cut it to fit. My measurements and his cuts were awesome, but they were so good that the pull out was too tight of a fit and it wouldn't roll. It took time to get it to fit and we spent a full night working on just this. I sanded, primed, and painted the drawer and the extra wood before installing.

It took me a long time to decide on a roof color. Originally I thought I would paint it the same off white as the inside, but that just didn't seem right once the popsicle sticks were installed. Then I was thinking of staining them; which I think would have looked awesome on another project, but not on a kid's doll house. My dad came up with the dark purple idea after looking at their play tent colors. One of the best decisions I made during this project was buying the more expensive paint that included primer. Putting two coats on this roof was so much faster, and probably cheaper overall , than priming and then painting. My only primer at home is white, and I don't think the purple would have covered that very well. To finish off the roof, I bought a few random pieces of wood at Home Depot, painted them, and glued them on to make it look decent.

In the middle of working on the doll house itself, I was busy working on things for the inside. I got most of the furniture at Goodwill. I had to sew cushions for the couches, and I painted a cabinet and counter for the bathroom. I used lots of different colors of paint for the counter. Most of that paint I've bought over the years at Home Depot for other projects and all except the gold and black were $1 cans of oops paint. The gold and black are acrylics I bought for another project. I used tiny pieces of paper towel to paint the "granite" counter.

The almost finished project. I still need to frame a picture for the living room and make a flat screen tv for over the fireplace. I am making bunkbeds for the bedroom...but they don't fit. LOL. The kids don't mind. They will play with the beds outside of the house. I sewed pillows, matresses, and blankets for the beds. For the bathroom, I used an existing tub and toilet we already had. I would love to get more realistic ones, but the kids don't care, so for now these work great. The bathroom floor tile was on clearance at Menards and a friend gave me tile for the fireplace from a leftover backsplash project. The "grout" is light weight spackle.

We plan on moving the doll house down into the basement and anchoring it to the wall. It is a bit top heavy and I do not trust the kids to stay out of it. The last thing we need is this awesome project turning into a nightmare. I've checked for anchors at a few stores, but haven't found any yet. I may have to order them online.