My Dollhouse Christmas Holiday House Tour

Have you ever wanted to do something but kept putting it off? Maybe due to lack of time, lack of funds – whatever it is. For me, despite my forays into many different craft projects, the one I never did, but secretly wanted to, was to build a dollhouse. Well, to be more specific, to decorate a dollhouse. After months of watching my friend, children’s book author and illustrator Brian Lies, build a miniature room for the fictitious Paige the Squirrel of the new Beacon Hill Books and Cafe, I was inspired.

At the end of August I started looking at dollhouse kits to build. My building skills are pretty much non-existent and I don’t exactly have a workshop set up – I have a corner of my dining room table and a small folding table. But I thought something with all new parts and instructions was the way to dive in.

I came across this Colonial Dollhouse kit from Real Good Toys and was charmed by the small size and New England feel of the little house. This is a half-scale dollhouse. Standard dollhouses are 1:12 scale (1″ = 1′). The kit I purchased is 1:24 scale – 1″ = 2′. The total height of this house is 17″ – basically a tabletop decoration.

It comes with over 700 pieces which to be fair includes 600 individual tiny shingles.

Since it’s the holidays, I decided decorate for a dollhouse Christmas Holiday House Tour. After the holidays, I’ll remove the Christmas decor and finish the interiors (a few items to do remain on the punch list) and will post about specific decorating decisions of each room. But for now, I hope you’ll enjoy the Dollhouse Christmas Holiday House Tour!

I set the house in a small tray which I painted to emulate a hedge and to contain the yard. As you can see, I didn’t end up doing the shutters and flower boxes – I prefer a cleaner Georgian style over Colonial.

One of the things I’ve discovered with my foray into the miniatures world – 3D Printing and Laser printing is huge! The tiny lanterns were 3D printed and then I painted them and added a mirrored back and a little piece of gold tinsel for the light.

My carved wooden dachshund is a little overscale for this tiny home, but I still needed her here. The transom window over the door is actually empty in the kit, so I added the window “lites” with toothpicks.

And here we have the dollhouse Christmas holiday house rooms! You can have up to 8 individual rooms, but I wanted more space in each – remember, the rooms are each less than 5″ high. As you can see, it’s the worlds cleanest attic and I haven’t yet done the furniture for the bedroom.

Dollhouse Christmas Kitchen

The chairs and table were the first pieces of furniture that I built – both from kits. Since the kitchen is so tiny (and kitchens are hard to make!) I decided to paper the walls with digital renderings of my dream home kitchen design.

This will give you an idea about the scale!

Dollhouse Christmas Bedroom

Ok, the bedroom is unfinished. I added fireplaces to the bedroom and living room. The mantles were 3D printed and I made the surrounding wall, hearth, birch logs and added a mini version of the Pamela Copeman painting of my boy RoyRoy in a place of honor. To come will be a bed, side tables, window treatments and a standing mirror possibly.

Dollhouse Christmas Bathroom

In the bathroom, the sink and tub were 3D printed and I made pretty much everything else.

Nothing like a bubble bath and a good book!

Dollhouse Living Room

I made the settee based on this one , the Isabella bench by Formations, featured in Gerald Pomeroy’s project shown in the current issue of Traditional Home.

The Mora Clock was a 3D printed clock that I painted to match the wallpaper.

This is the Dollhouse Christmas house with all the lights on where it sits in my bay window.

Click here for the final reveal!

Pin for future reference.