Wallpapering The Dollhouse Living Room

I’ve decided that I’m not going to paint the walls in the dollhouse, but will instead wallpaper them.

I’m starting with the living room using the printable roses wallpaper design offered at Blohm Design.

Here’s the link to the wallpaper.

I’m printing the wallpaper design on regular copy paper using my color laser printer.

Once I’ve printed enough sheets of the wallpaper, I’m then covering the sheets of paper with Transparent “peel n stick” shelving plastic.  This can be purchased in the shelving paper section of any department store.

To cover the sheets, I am peeling from one corner of shelving paper (cut to about 2 inches bigger than my piece of wallpaper) about 2 inches down, then I lay the corner of the plastic on a corner of the wallpaper.  I then peel and press carefully until the sheet if covered.  As I peel I gently rub with the side of a Popsicle stick to remove any air bubbles and to help it adhere better.

When covering your wallpaper, be sure there is no dirt grime or trash on the table you are working on.  The plastic will pick up the smallest bit of dust, and dirt or trash will cause holes when you rub with the stick.

The plastic provides a nice sheen to the wallpaper, making it look more realistic when using regular paper, and also protects the wallpaper making it last longer.

I then cut the wallpaper to fit the left and back wall of the living room.

I’m using Elmer’s school glue to adhere the wallpaper to the wall. The wallpaper doesn’t need much glue, just a think coating. Once I position the wallpaper on the wall, I rub gently over it with a Popsicle stick, while wiping any glue that seeps out of the edges with a damp cloth.

 

Once the glue has dried, I then start to work on the wall with the French doorway.

I want a stone wall for here, so I am using the stone wallpaper patten provided by Jennifers Printables.

When printing the stone, it looks a bit too “new” for my tastes.  So I did not cover it with plastic because I want it to get a nice aged look.

I also adhered the stone pattern to the wall using Elmer’s glue.  I let this dry, and then I carefully cut the paper about 1/4 inch around the doorway with a razor knife.  I folded and glued the extra to the inside of the doorway.  I’ll cover this later with something else.

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My Current Dollhouse Decorations

To show that I am decorating my new dollhouse almost from scratch, I’d like to share the items I currently have on hand for decorating. 

This miniature bed was purchased about 2 years ago at the local Goodwill store.  I found it in the toy bin for only 25 cents.

It’s made of wood and has a foam mattress and represents a Queen sized bed.  It’s currently sitting in the master bedroom of the dollhouse.

I plan to recover the bed, but the current stain looks great so I probably won’t be refinishing it.

Here I have a miniature cloth Hitty doll that was made for me by Ms. Courtney Butler.  She stands just a tad over 5 inches tall (between the 1/16 and 1/8 marks.  I do not plan to purchase a dollhouse family; instead I’ll be using dolls that are handmade like this one is.

I’ll be crocheting some nice dresses and hats for this doll, and will be thinking of a good name for her.  She’ll be the wife and mommy in the house, but as of right now she’s a single woman who is proud to have purchased her new home and just thankful that she has a bed to sleep on.

And here is my collection of miniature bears.  These bears stand from 1 inch tall (the pink crocheted bear) to 3 1/2 inches tall (the large brown crocheted bear).  They currently sit in the attic.

Notice the lines on the attic ceiling?  That’s the nice piece of Birchwood paneling I found, it was perfect for creating a rustic look in the attic!

Courtney also made some of the bears and I made the rest.   Courtney made the bear on the far left as well as the bear with the open mouth right beside it.  She also made the crocheted brown bear and the brown bear that is sitting.

On hand I also have some scrapbook paper, cardboard, Elmer’s glue, a hot glue gun, some small mini craft sticks, furniture fabrics, vintage velvet rayon fabric pieces, crochet hooks and thread.

I’ll be using these as well as other items found around the house to do the majority of the dollhouse decorating.

With glue, cardboard and fabric, one can make virtually almost every piece of furniture one would want for a dollhouse.

I’ll be starting on the floors and walls first, as well as printing free printables I locate online for various odds and ends like food, books, magazines and other small items made for 1:12 scale dollhouses.

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My New Dollhouse

I just finished building my first dollhouse using scrap lumber.   This dollhouse was ALMOST completely free to build.  The only cost involved in building it was time, and a bottle of Elmer’s stainable wood glue.  Of course I used tools I already had on hand as well.

The tools I used were a hammer, jigsaw and sander.  Of course a hacksaw and regular sandpaper would have been sufficient as well for cutting and sanding the pieces.
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