|
Step One: Frame the Dollhouse Cottage
Once the craft foam board dollhouse pieces are cut out, you can begin
construction of your dollhouse cottage.
Start by glueing the top and bottom pieces to the dollhouse back. The top
and bottom are dimensioned to span clear across the cottage back.
Support the top and bottom by gluing in 3/8 inch thick balsa strips along
the inside edge, as shown in the image.
|
Next, glue on the cottage sides. These are dimensioned to fit along the
left and right edges of the dollhouse back, and between the top and bottom.
Again, glue on the 3/8 inch wood strips to help brace the sides.
|
|
|
|
Add The Middle Floor
Next, glue in the middle floor of your dollhouse cottage. Be sure you
notch out the back side of the middle floor panel to go around the
balsa wood strips.
Try to get the middle piece as near as you can to be equal distance to
both the top and bottom panels.
|
|
Add Roof And Room Dividers
Next, trim the vertical size of room divider panels D1 and D2 so that they
just fit between floors. Glue the dividers in place to give the room
sizes you desire.
Again, you must notch one corner of the back of the room divider panels
to fit around the balsa wood support strips.
You can position the dividers to whatever room size you like. In the
example, each of the bottom two floors have one smaller and one larger
room.
Finally, glue the roof top panel and the roof side panels to the back panel.
This creates not only the roof, but an additional attic room.
|
|
Fasten Cottage Dollhouse Doors And Handle
Small cabinet hinges are used to attach the cottage doors. I fastened
the hinges to the inside of the cottage side panels and the back side of the
doors.
First mark where the hinges will attach, then on the sides of the cottage
panels and doors opposite the hinge locations, glue a thin wood shape the
size of the hinges (or slightly larger). This gives more substance for the
cabinet screws to fasten to, and supports the hinges.
I attached the hinges with both screws and glue.
At left you see the door back side with hinge placement. At the
right you see the door front side with the reenforcement wood shapes.
(We'll get to the window design in a bit).
Attach the handle supporting wood shape to the
bottom side of the roof panel, then attach the handle to the top of the
roof panel.
|
|
|
Dressing Up The Cottage Dollhouse
|
The cottage dollhouse can be dressed up with dollhouse shingles and some
attractive windows.
To give a surface for easy shingle attachment, you can trim a thin
sheet of balsa wood to fit the roof top and sides and glue into place.
Then attach the shingles as shown in the image.
You can also see that the cottage sides and door fronts have some
picturesque windows. These can easily be constructed as follows.
|
|
|
|
Dollhouse Window Construction
The windows are created from left over pieces of the foam board and some
thin balsa wood strips.
At the extreme left of the image is a piece of foam board cut to the
desired window size (a side window in this case), and strips of balsa
that will be used for framing window panes.
At the right of the image you see the center portion of the foam board
cut away to leave a window frame, with the balsa strips glued to the back
of the frame to make window pane boundaries.
Next, glue a picture cutout or a craft paper cutout to the back of the
window frame to give the image you wish to see in the window.
|
|
Cottage Room Windows
You can use the same technique to make windows with pretty scenery for
the cottage interior.
At left you see a closeup of the window created for the cottage
dollhouse living room. You can also see some of the dollhouse furniture
(described elsewhere on this website) further adorning the room.
Using your imagination, you and your youngsters can have hours of fun
creating, decorating, and playing with this lovely little dollhouse cottage.
With other projects on this site, you can make all the furniture, appliances,
and even dolls to use in the cottage.
|
Dollhouse Home
| 
